The Russian government will develop its own mobile operating system
Ever since Edward Snowden claimed that the US government has implemented backdoors in all of the major operating systems, some of the world's major powers started looking into alternatives.
It's in this highly sensitive international context that Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov recently announced that the Russian government will create its own mobile operating system.
According to Nikiforov, the new mobile OS will be developed in collaboration with Jolla, the company behind the Linux-based Sailfish OS. Jolla was created by former Nokia employees and is based in Finland, but its ownership structure also includes both Russian and Chinese shareholders.
In a recent post on Twitter, Nikiforov stated that the new mobile OS is a joint partnership between Finland, China, and Russia. The Russian government official also revealed that he expects Brazil, India, and South Africa to participate in the project as well.
Nikiforov did not reveal the name of the new mobile operating system, but he did mention that it will be a separate product, as opposed to an implementation of the current Sailfish version.
The Russian Communications Minister stated that about 95 percent of the phones in Russia currently run "imported" operating systems such as Android or iOS. Looking into the future, Nikiforov has hopes that this number will drop to 50 percent by 2025. Needless to say, this is a very optimistic forecast.
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