COS, Chinese government's gontender to Battle iOS & Android?

The government of China is not too fond of foreign mobile operating systems like iOS and Android, so the country cooked up its own homegrown solution: A Linux-based, open-source operating system called the COS, or China Operating System.

According to People's Daily, a government-run news organization in China, COS is a joint effort between the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) and a company called Shanghai Liantong, which develops software and communication technology. According to China’s dedicated website, the COS was designed for smartphones, PCs, smart appliances and set-top boxes, and is “intended to break the foreign monopoly in the field of infrastructure software.”

At a launch event Wednesday, the head of the ISCAS took the first steps in denigrating the so-called foreign mobile “monopoly” and promoting China’s own COS. According to Engadget Chinese, the ISCAS chief “criticized iOS for being a closed ecosystem,” mentioned Android’s “infamous fragmentation problem,” and added that both Android and Windows Phone OS are “let down by poor security.”

Many Chinese consumers are skeptical of COS in its early going. According to Quartz’ Jennifer Chiu, Chinese smartphone users took to Sina Weibo in droves to critique COS after its unveiling this week, poking fun at its name—“What does COS stand for? COPY ANOTHER SYSTEM?”—and sarcastically proposing that Communist Party “members, cadres, and leaders throw away their iPhones [first] and have them replayed by our superb homemade operating system!”