China Standard Software Co Ltd and Tianjin Kylin Information Ltd Co will jointly build a domestic operating system, according to China Electronics Corporation. (Photo:chinanews.com)

China National Software's subsidiaries Standard Software and Tianjin Kylin Information Technology Corporation (TKC) announced their merger as one operating system company in Beijing on Friday to accelerate research and development and market expansion of self-developed operating system.

The integration was done in response to the industrial development trend, market demand and need to build a strong, reliable network, and to play the major role of national enterprises in the construction of the country's key information infrastructure, China Electronics Corporation said.

After the integration, the new company will virtually control China's self-developed operating system market.

In July 2014, information and technology authorities initiated the process to boost the development and use of China's self-developed CPU, operating system and database in all Party and government organizations, according to the China information security industry market panorama analysis and investment risk forecast report 2015-2020.

Han Naiping, president of China Standard Software, said all Party and government agencies and ministries in the country are using their operating system. 

"Our goal is to pool resources and accelerate the building of a new flagship operating system in China," he said. "It is crucial for China to have its own operating system for national information security."

The domestic operating system market is currently valued at more than 9 billion yuan, of which 90 percent is run on Unix and Windows operating systems, Han said.

Nevertheless, China still lags far behind developed countries in innovation. The ecosystems of Microsoft's Windows, Google's Android and Apple's IOS are in place.

In the first eight months of 2019, Windows accounted for 87.6 percent of the operating system market, down slightly from the end of last year, and OSX systems accounted for 7.09 percent, a report by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China showed.

"We are trying to retrieve lost ground," Han said.

Global Times