JAKARTA - The Indian government on Tuesday, January 24 tested a locally developed mobile operating system, BharOS. This is a move that is considered challenging the dominance of Android from Google just days after the US giant experienced a setback due to a massive antitrust lawsuit in the country.
The government's approval of the operating system comes after Google lost its fight at India's Supreme Court to block an antitrust order that would force Google to change its way of marketing its Android operating system in the country.
"We still have a long way to go, but if this happens, the monopoly by anyone will be lost," said Dharmandra Pradhan, India's Minister of Skills and Entrepreneurship Development, at a BharOS testing event in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also encouraged independence to improve and promote everything from local manufacturing to domestic startups.
BharOS' operating system itself has been developed by an incubated startup at India's Institute of Technology in southern India.
According to Counterpoint Research estimates, India is the second largest smartphone market in the world, after China, where about 97% of the 600 million running smartphones circulating in India use Android.
India's Competition Commission said Google is exploiting its dominant position on Android and is looking for a series of changes in how it operates. Although the allegations have been denied by Google.
Google has been asked to remove the restrictions imposed on device makers, including those related to pre-installation of the app.
However, warning directions could stop the growth of the Android ecosystem in India and force the company to change the settings with more than 1,100 device manufacturers, especially smartphones.
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