India eyes native operating system to rival Android, iOS: Here’s what the government said

In an interesting move aimed to break the operating system monopoly enjoyed by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, the government is considering coming up with a policy that will facilitate an ecosystem for the industry to create an indigenous OS as an alternative to these two tech majors.

According to a PTI report quoting Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, “At present, mobile phones are dominated by two operating systems – Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS that are driving the hardware ecosystem as well. There is no third one. Therefore, in a lot of ways there is tremendous interest in MeitY and in the Government of India to even create a new handset operating system. We are talking to people. We are looking at a policy for that.”

The government is looking for capabilities within start-up and academic ecosystems for development of an indigenous operating system (OS), the minister said.

It must be noted that the operating system is the main software of any computer and mobile device that weaves in the entire hardware and software system for effective functioning of the OS.

“If there is some real capability then we will be very much interested in developing that area because that will create an alternative to iOS and Android which then an Indian brand can grow,” the news agency quoted Chandrasekhar as saying.

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