hey nerds I've been doing some laptop shopping and
there's this awesome brand known as huawei mate book that I've been looking
about but I'm really concerned whether you should buy Huawei and if you don't
know it's because of all of the noise over what's going on with Huawei I'm not
an expert in this but I did bring in somebody who's done a lot of reporting
on it Julian Bush out from our sister channel
IDG tuck talk is gonna bring us up-to-date about what all the
consternation is over wall way yeah thanks Gordon so why do you exactly
is going on here is a few weeks ago the US government essentially banned US
businesses from any transactions with Huawei and that it's really important to
note I know you're shopping for a new laptop it's not about their laptops it's
not about their phones it's about their network infrastructure that's going to
be important when building 5g so wait you're saying the laptops and phones are
not automatically recording everything and spying on me that's not this is
because I mean I've heard a lot I heard my aunt talking about it at Thanksgiving
not am I making that up a lot of people are saying older spying on me this
hardware spy me that's not really what the allegations are at this point nope
phones laptops that's not what this is all about this is about the alleged the
huge word here is alleged security risk that Huawei is putting backdoors in its
5g infrastructure that can be used to spy on people so that's what's going on
and as a result US businesses cannot have any sort of transaction with them
and that think Google Facebook but also think Intel think Qualcomm huge it's
really affecting the Huawei supply chain but what's also important here is that
while we was get graduated 90-day reprieve by the US Department of
Commerce that's gonna go into about August so we have a few more months for
huawei to sort itself out and the US government to sort itself out and at the
end of the day this band may never happen so let's focus more about your
laptop what are you concerned about here well I I think the main concern which
I think we do have some clarification for a Microsoft is I'm not gonna get
security updates if I can't get security updates in Windows 10 because always
been put into a little pen by the US government Huawei laptops Huawei phones
and I can't get those security updates I'm gonna be at risk yeah
and at first glance that's a pretty valid concern it was something that I
thought about immediately because already Google had to pull android
security updates from future Huawei phones but now Google kind of wants to
fight back it's saying it's a huge security risk to not be able to issue
those updates and responsive while ways probably gonna make their own OS but
like you said Microsoft is probably still gonna be able to continue to push
out Windows updates and frankly it's possible that Google will still be able
to push out Android updates or Huawei will just make us own OS yeah and I do
want to point out we did get a statement from Microsoft yesterday where they
essentially said you know we make great products we support excellent products
and we will upon initial examination of the Department of Commerce orders be
able to still support consumers with Windows updates one thing that does bug
me a little bit there is what does that mean initial update I mean right the do
you have any feeling that like I've read everywhere the seat feels like I can't
even get a straight story are you gonna be able to get an Android phone with
updates I think you can get it with a laptops but I'm concerned about all the
misinformation out there absolutely and that's completely a valid concern there
is a lot of information floating out there and on top of that it really seems
like everything regarding this ban is changing daily if not weekly there's
extensions granted companies are still going to be able to update their push
out security updates chip makers are still maybe going to certainly want to
still work with Huawei there's a lot going on and I think what's especially
interesting is that Microsoft recently pushed out their Huawei laptops on to
their online store right yeah they disappeared off of the
Microsoft Store they're actually back there now and I guess of Microsoft just
everybody's like oh look you can buy Huawei laptop skin and Microsoft's
saying look we got these laptops in inventory we're gonna sell them I was
looking at Amazon this morning you still have a lot of mate books on Amazon you
can buy them so they're just sort of back in the store because we're selling
what we have it's not really clear from what Microsoft said it's not clear
they're gonna be selling them going forward because there's rumors of a new
Huawei laptop coming that they bases said you know what we don't know if we
can get chips for these things so we're not gonna really announce these just
just a lot of that sort of discomfort I I think yeah and I think there is that
sort of discomfort is warranted right now but what is important for anyone
who's looking to buy a huawei product it's important to keep in mind that if
you're wanna be a risk taker and you want to buy a Huawei product go for it
as it stands now it seems like you'll still get security updates but the issue
here is that it could change at any second so I don't know what your
thoughts are Gordon I don't know how this is gonna affect your decision
making how you think anyone else is going to what sort of thought process
they're gonna now take when buying a Huawei machine yeah and I I I don't know
I mean I I think knowing the way Windows and the the PC world is always kind of
worked it's fairly generic I've never seen Hardware not get denied updates
except obviously if you haven't paid for it but if you pay for Windows you've
almost universally always gotten updates no matter who you are no member no
matter where you are in the world or in space you get those updates
I don't really that the scary thing to me is if they say we're not gonna we're
not illegally allowed to allow updates to go to these laptops in in a few weeks
or you're saying in August and August that makes me a little concerned but
then it feels like if it's a really good deal a lot of people are like well this
might actually cause medical but it's on sale well then okay I might
just buy this anyway so that's how a lot of people think and I depending on how
the prices are on these laptops what the features are if the sale is good enough
what the hell roll the dice right I say I think I'm with you I say if the sale
is good enough if you're willing to take the risk I say go for it I think it's
gonna be much more difficult than I think probably the US government would
like to actually stop these major huge tech companies from rolling out updates
it's not going to be as simple as them saying you can't do that anymore
okay now you didn't mention this is over 5g it is not a concern over the laptops
of the phones spying on you necessarily but are we gonna see this all any time
soon this is just gonna this is gonna grind on for years and you'll be
wondering whether the updates will be cut out from under your your legs or is
just gonna we're gonna see light at the end of this tunnel that's a great
question yeah so what's important to remember is that the US and China are as
I'm sure you and everyone knows are in the middle of a pretty heated trade war
so it's but it's possible that the President of the United States present
Trump is going to use this as an excessive bargaining chip in this trade
war and say you know what if you give me this I won't have a band on Huawei
anymore people don't people don't love that
because the whole reason that this band is in place in the first place is
because of security but President Trump and presidents using paying up China are
going to meet at the g20 summit in a few weeks I believe it's actually in a week
where it's expected that there are going to be some sort of trade talks so I
think the next update that we're gonna hear about the Huawei ban will be next
week during the g20 summit hmm okay well I think probably I'll continue to shop
for laptops in the meantime maybe we'll get an update if there's any information
if they decided to stop playing badminton with Huawei next week right
we'll give you an update here hopefully yeah absolutely okay cool well thanks
for coming thanks for clearing up at least some of the misconceptions that
are out there Juliet humph again check it out IDG tuck talk
over there somewhere click over there