China's homegrown OS could debut in October

China is putting the finishing touches on a home-grown operating system designed to replace Windows - and eventually Android - in the nation.

China's Academy of Engineering expects the desktop version of the operating system to be ready by October, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

A development alliance with both public and private sector members was established in March to design the operating system. The OS is also under development for mobile platforms as an Android alternative, but will debut on desktops first.

According to Chinese state media, the Academy of Engineering hopes that the OS will replace Windows and other foreign desktop operating systems in China within one or two years, and foreign mobile operating systems within three to five.

Development of the mobile component of the OS appears to be primarily motivated by the fact that China's numerous smartphone vendors are over-reliant on Android and have no independent intellectual property rights over Android variants produced for the Chinese market.

But problems including a lack of adequate funding and different developers pulling in different directions could delay the launch of the OS, Xinhua said.

The Chinese government has been cracking down on foreign influence in the nation's tech sector in the wake of the escalating tensions with the US over cybersecurity - and as it seeks to give its domestic sector an economic boost.

In May, the government banned the use of Windows 8 by public sector organisations. Chinese competition officials are also probing Microsoft over antitrust allegations and raided the company's offices last month in connection with the investigation.

Microsoft isn't the only foreign company being targeted in the crackdown. Chip vendor Qualcomm is facing huge fines in a separate antitrust case and Kaspersky Lab and Symantec products have also been excluded from government use, according to recent reports.

Image courtesy of Vin Crosbie under CC