According to the latest reports, China-based technology giant Huawei is currently in talks with Russia for installing a Russian operating system named Aurora 360,000 of its tablets. The devices will be used to conduct Russia’s population census next year.

The source, which was cited in the report, has said that this is a pilot project and Huawei installing the Russian operating system on its tablets is being seen as the first stage. Huawei also confirmed that it is in talks with the Russian Ministry of Communication, but the spokeswoman has not revealed more details.

The report adds that Russia is discussing the use of Aurora OS on 360,000 Huawei tablets by August 2020. It also adds that the owner of Aurora, Russia’s state telecommunications operator, Rostelecom, is the sole contractor for buying tablets to hold the population census in Russia, which has a population of 147 million, next October.

In a statement to Reuters, Rostelecom said: “Various options for collaboration with Huawei are currently being considered with participation of the Ministry of Communications… We don’t disclose details yet, there is an agreement on confidentiality.”

The development comes at a time when Huawei is reportedly seeking an alternative to Google’s Android operating system for its devices. This happened after the United States put Huawei on the “Entity List”, banning the company from doing business with the US-based firms and technology.

However, the Chinese giant has recently been granted another 90-day reprieve from the ban, allowing it to use Android among many other products. While the company has said that it is planning to use Google’s Android as long as it can, but they are getting ready in case the US goes ahead with enforcing the ban.

During the Huawei Developers Conference 2019 earlier this month, Huawei launched its much-awaited operating system named HarmonyOS for the global markets and HongMeng OS in China. The OS works with a wide range of devices, including smart home products, smartwatches, smart TVs, and smartphones, among others. The first HarmonyOS-powered product, Honor Vision TV, has already been launched in China.

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The clock is ticking for Huawei and in less than two months, it will officially be blocked from installing Google’s software on future devices. Not unless Google and Huawei are able to convince the US government otherwise, of course. With the stakes that high, Huawei was repeatedly been reported to be preparing a Plan B operating system for its future phones.

While the ARK OS that has been mentioned in the past may still be based on Android, a new report suggests that Huawei is also looking into using a Russian-made version of Jolla’s Sailfish OS. Aurora OS is a Russian-made mobile operating system based on the open-source Sailfish OS Linux distribution developed by Finnish company Jolla.

Sailfish isn’t the most popular mobile operating system out there; in fact, it doesn’t show up on the radar of Android versus iOS. However, its focus on privacy and security has won over many users. Based on Nokia’s and Intel’s aborted MeeGo OS, Sailfish uses an almost completely different software stack. To date, very few commercially available phones have shipped with Sailfish OS.

Huawei is allegedly already testing Aurora on a few of its devices. Switching to a non-Android OS would be a risky move, though, considering how important app support is for the average consumer. That’s why we’re seeing Huawei reach out to app developers to publish on its AppGallery app store, and why the company is exploring Aptoide as a Play Store alternative. Completely foregoing Android is likely a last resort for the company.

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