Daybreak - Why BharOS needs to take lessons from the past

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

BharOS is being launched at a time when the tech giant Google is under the government's scrutiny for adopting anti-competitive practices as the market leader in India.But this is not the first time India is trying to develop an indigenous operating system, both for mobile and computer devices. The failure of the OS projects in the past may hold some important lessons for anyone making a future attempt.Tune in for the details.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Ramon, Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. In one of the previous episodes of Daybreak,

I told you about how Google, owing to its massive market dominance, had been found guilty of using anti-competitive practices by the Indian government. There are a total of four antitrust cases against it, but the one that I told you about was related to its dominance in the Android operating systems market. In India, 96% of smartphones are powered by Google's Android OS. It is a big market for the tech giant. And now, the Apple iOS, even though it is not as pervasive as Google, is also growing.

Naturally, concerns are being raised about the safety and security of mobile phone users in India. Take, for example, the issue of the side loading of apps, which basically means installing an app on a mobile device without using the device's official application distribution method. The Competition Commission of India or the CCI has asked Google to allow side loading from developers to reduce its dominance in the market. But allowing side loading will also require Google to ensure security for its users, which in turn means spending more money.

So unsurprisingly, the CCI's directive has led to this back-in-forth between mobile phone manufacturers and Google. Basically, nobody wants to take responsibility. Google says that it is the mobile manufacturer's responsibility and the mobile manufacturers say no, it's not. According to them, it is up to Google and the government to ensure security for mobile phone users. Now, while all this drama was unfolding, on the 24th of January, the Minister of Communications Electroids, and information technology, Dharmenra Pradhan, and the telecom minister Ashwini Vashnav, tested power OS,

an indigenous operating system developed by IIT Madras. But the thing is, this is actually not the first time that the government of India is trying to build an operating system for mobile phones and computers. These previous attempts have some important lessons for power OS. What are these lessons from the past that India's latest mobile OS project should learn.

Welcome to Daybreak, a new podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nickda Sharma, and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, thrice a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday the 27th of January. It's not just the Indian government that had been thinking about a made-in-India mobile OS. For quite some time, mobile manufacturers from the country have also been asking for an Indian mobile operating system. And to them, it did not matter whether it was done with or without the support of global tech companies like Google.

In fact, many think that the CCI is cracked down on Google is in fact a step in that direction. A DASI operating system, according to them, would provide more security and safety for consumers. So now this endorsement of Bhr-OS by the government is not only being seen as a challenge to Google, but also as the government ensuring a fair market for other players. Even though there is no information publicly available yet on BharOS or its key features, from what we know through various reports, it is not very different from Android and iOS. In fact, according to the Indian Express, it appears to be less of an alternative and more of a fork version of Android.

Forking is essentially when a developer can copy the source code of an app or an operating system and create a new project without violating copyright laws. And we know that Google's Android has been an open source project from the very beginning. Anyone can use its source code and create their own fork or alternate version. So is Bahr OS really a new operating system? That is a question we can only answer when we know more details about Bhaar OS's features. For now, let us look at India's older attempts at making a new operating system. They have come from both the public and private sectors.

In 2016, a mobile operating system supporting 12 Indian languages called Indus OS was launched by a Mumbai-based startup. Within a year, it became the second most popular operating system after Android. But right around the same time, the market was flooded by Chinese smartphone brands, and most of these already came with the Android OS. Indus OS lost the battle. The startup eventually changed its course towards an app store business. The Indus App Bazaar now hosts more than 400,000 applications and was acquired by phone pay in July last year.

Just two years after that, in 2018, Reliance Geo took a different approach. It bought itself a stake in Hong Kong-based KaiOS using the operating system for its keypack-based feature phones. Gio claims to have sold 100 million such phones, but now it has partnered with Google and Android for its entry-level 4G smartphone. The second example that comes from the public sector is the work being done by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing or the CDAC. It has been working on Boss or the Bharath Operating System Solutions since 2007. According to people close to the ministry, the OS is being used by the Indian Navy and a few other government agencies. A public version of boss, however, was never launched because of the lack of resources. But now the government is testing a new mobile OS.

A senior government official who spoke to the business standards said, and I'm quoting, India is one of the largest mobile device markets in the globe. Our objective is to create a secure Indian mobile operating system that could also create choices and competition for Android's dominance in the Indian market. and a smaller share of iOS. End quote. While the idea of Bhbhar OS might seem very noble at the moment and quite timely too, its success depends on the lessons that we learn from our past and also China's.

Let me explain. In this OS failed because it targeted the lower end of the smartphone spectrum but could not survive the influx of Chinese smartphones which now dominate that segment. The higher end of smartphone users, however, will clearly want an experience similar to what is provided by Android-powered Samsung or iOS-powered Apple devices. At the core of that model is the network of apps and service APIs that truly make operating systems stand out. In the case of Android, it is the GMS or Google Mobile Services, which includes highly popular features such as search, maps and Google Play. Meanwhile, Chinese telecom giant Huawei has also been working on its own operating system since 2016. It is called the Harmony OS, which was announced in 2019.

Now, Harmony isn't entirely based on the Android fork. But over the years, the Chinese company has built a suite of applications called Huawei Mobile Services or HMS, which is quite similar to GMS. When my colleague Pratab Vikram Singh, who wrote the story, spoke to government officials involved in OS projects, they told him that that is what the Indian OS project should be concentrating on. The game is also now shifting into non-smartphone territory like IoT and connected devices like cars, home appliances, etc. HMS is Huawei's tool to stitch together solutions across these many devices and platforms. and Google is expected to rule the automotive side of things for the near future. So for now, the success of BhaarOS really depends on whether the government of India is willing to take a more wider and strategic approach.

Daybreak is produced from the Newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters, subscriber-only apps and podcast extras. Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. I am Snigda Sharma, your host, and today's episode was edited by my colleague Rajiv Sien.