Huawei Launches In-house Software System After Being Cut Off From US Services

China's Huawei said on Thursday it is replacing internal software management systems it once sourced from U.S. vendors with its own in-house version, hailing it as a victory over U.S. curbs that once threatened its survival. From a report: Huawei held an internal ceremony to celebrate the switch to its own 'MetaERP' (enterprise resource planning system) in Dongguan, south China on Thursday, attended by the Huawei's rotating Chairperson Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhengfei. ERP software is used by companies to manage key business operations ranging from accounting to supply chain management.

"We were cut off from the old ERP system and other core operation and management systems three years ago," said Tao Jingwen, a Huawei board member and president of its quality, business process and IT management department. "Today we are proud to announce that we have broken through that blockade, we have survived!" The in-house Meta-ERP has been rolled out across 80% of the company's business, Huawei said in a news release.

When I worked at Huawei in my country...

[williamyf]

in the late '00s , they used Outlook/exchaange for external communications, and Lotus notes for internal/confidential ones. Also, lotus for some internal processes (like expoenses reports, travel arrangements, etc). At the time they were well aligned with IBM both in management consulting, chips (telco gear used PPC) and SW, so, likely they were using some sort of IBM ERP, if that thing even existed.

If this replaced that hot mess, good for them. If they used a FOSS solution under the hood, even better.

Re:

[farcry1124]

I wonder if FOSS projects can be sanctioned too?

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Ah, Outlook and Lotus Notes, the US' secret weapon to cripple foreign competitors. When I worked for IBM, Notes was kind of a standing joke at lunchtime, "what crazy breakage has occurred today?", that sort of thing.

Re:

[tbords]

Ah, Outlook and Lotus Notes, the US' secret weapon to cripple foreign competitors. When I worked for IBM, Notes was kind of a standing joke at lunchtime, "what crazy breakage has occurred today?", that sort of thing.

Lotus Notes was still crippling my parent company all the way through last year. Unfortunately, they switched to Outlook -_-. Now we're even more crippled in many ways.

Re: When I worked at Huawei in my country...

[j35ter]

I worked at Huawei sales until the end of the last decade. We used a hodgepodge of different systems running on Oracle SAP and Salesforce masked as "eQuote" etc. It was a fucking nightmare...

Nowadays I'm working as sales in a large US IT company and we use Salesforce along with dozens of excel sheets and some legacy systems.

What doesn't kill you make you stronger

[khchung]

Huawei is demonstrating what extreme evolutionary pressure do to a species, what doesn't kill them makes them stronger. This is how you get drug-resistant bacteria.

The problem: what Huawei developed, they can sell to other companies, and they are big enough to self-develop many things. They are now like a mini-version of China, they are so big that America can no longer suffocate them with sanctions.

Eventually, Huawei will develop everything they need, and then it becomes possible for other Chinese companies to go entirely US-free, that would make US sanctions much less effective. Give them 5-10 years, they could have an entire US-free ecosystem going in China.

Re:

[EreIamJH]

Yep. I think by 2030 the vast majority of non-western businesses will have replaced their tech stacks with equivalents containing zero western IP. I bet that right now every large non-western company is busy developing contingency plans in case they get hit by sanctions - and many of those businesses will be looking to jump vendors at their next upgrade cycle.

Re:

[1s44c]

It's not western IP technology they need to cut out, it's just US sourced technology.

Once Huawei have an enterprise ERP system without US technology it would be literally insane of them not to sell it to every company that wants to buy it. And lets face it, SAP is absolutely awful.

Re: What doesn't kill you make you stronger

[dwater]

Well, not really, since the US threatens even western companies that use us technologies if they supply huawei (et al). It's the whole chain.

Re:What doesn't kill you make you stronger

[raftpeople]

Just because their press release says they accomplished this task doesn't mean they actually did. ERP systems are large and complex due to managing so many aspects of a business. Most companies don't employ the type of experienced people to build something like this (vendor apps like SAP or Netsuite have grown over time and with staff dedicated to this space, last count I heard was SAP was >100million lines of code).

I suspect reality is significantly different than the press release.

Re:

[farcry1124]

SAP is designed for all types of businesses and use cases. Huawei can develop features that they prioritize the most at the moment, they don't need to develop every single feature from SAP.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

I think you've got that backwards, SAP doesn't adapt to your business, you adapt your business to SAP. Once you've signed up you either run things the SAP way or spend a significant amount of time fighting how SAP wants you to run things.

In which case Huawei could have quite a strong advantage here, they're got SAP as a design-by-counterexample to show them the way.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

We make this mistake every time. "Oh there's no way they really developed that", and then suddenly tech companies are lobbying like mad to get Huawei banned because they did develop it and they can't compete.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Also, Chinese software design culture isn't exactly the best - so it would not surprise me if such a complex system was held together by duct tape and bailing wire and chewing gum.

Think of the stuff you see on TheDailyWTF and you'll probably have the monster that their ERP software is. It likely started out as a MS Access database and only grew from there.

Also, it wouldn't be long until it's completely ripped open, knowing how much priority is placed on security - it's probably got gaping holes, is connecte

Defective Western ERP

[Canberra1]

Having worked three decades of defective ERP systems - they are all flawed. Recently the demise of all things MS Explorer has stopped upgrades etc. Needless to say, unpatched browsers core to ERP input and output is an ongoing risk. Just try to change font sizes and color schemes in an ERP to see how locked-in the presentation layer is. Then there is random licencing fights and bizarre pricing. And they want you to use their proprietary DB that also means you must purchase recovery and testing tools with th

Re:

[gweihir]

Exactly what is happening. Thinking they could crush Huawei was as extremely arrogant as it was abysmally stupid. It assumes a vast superiority the US just does not have.

I hacked their systems, got the source!

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

I found the docs, too. It runs like this:

#php erp.php

Salesforce?

[chill]

We prevented them from using Salesforce and people are considering that a PUNISHMENT? What a strange world.

Re:

[bogaboga]

We prevented them from using Salesforce and people are considering that a PUNISHMENT? What a strange world.

What would you call it, dude?

And once again, China gets stronger

[gweihir]

It is abysmal stupidity thinking they cannot just do most things they source from outside themselves. This just forces them to get better at it. Good job!

hello

[margret48]

for business I use erp solutions in dubai [firstbit.ae]. I could not make the business stable for 1 year, but it appeared and the business became stable and gave me a lot of profit. he also does his job well. Good reviews guarantee that he is very good, so I trusted him and have a good income. Very satisfied with it I will continue to use and want to start another business with the help of this site