Microsoft said on Thursday that it has obtained an export license from the US government to sell its software services to Huawei. “On November 20th, the US Department of Commerce approved the Microsoft license to export mass-market software to Huawei. We thank the Ministry of Commerce for responding to our request for action,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters via email.
Earlier this week, the US Department of Commerce confirmed that it had begun licensing some companies to sell goods to Huawei. However, the approved products for sale to Huawei have not been confirmed. A US official said that about 300 license applications are on its desk. In addition, about half (150) of the total is currently in processing. Furthermore, a quarter of the total (75) has approval while the rest (75) have been rejected.
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However, Huawei has been anxiously awaiting permission from Alphabet Google to provide GMS services to new models. This will help its devices to sell globally. Another source confirmed that the US has approved some licenses for Huawei to sell mobile phone parts and non-electronic parts.
As early as May of this year, the US Department of Commerce added Huawei to the list of entities. It also implemented trade restrictions that prohibit Huawei from the purchase of US technology. Subsequently, Huawei’s Richard Yu said that due to the lack of accessibility of the required components and software services, the company abandoned its plan to launch the new MateBook. However, both Huawei and Honor will launch new notebooks in the near future. It is not clear whether Microsoft Windows 10 will be pre-installed.