Talk:Huawei/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Proposed improvements

I would like to help improve this page, however I believe that it is important that before making any suggestions or non-minor edits, I disclose that I work with Huawei. I recognize this means I have a potential conflict of interest, so I will be very careful, and I have read quite a bit about Wikipedia policy and so will strive to meet and exceed standards for WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY, WP:RELIABLE, WP:CONFLICT and all applicable guidelines. I have been writing a draft of the History section, which especially would benefit from re-organization and expansion, and I will put up my suggested version of it here shortly. Thank you, and if I can be a resource for anyone with questions about Huawei, I'll try to answer if I can. --Bouteloua (talk) 17:03, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

History section draft

There is now a draft of the History section available to read in my userspace, here: Huawei History draft. I have written this draft as an improvement on the current History section and would like if another editor could read it and offer any comments, or replace the current section with the draft if they think that it is better. As much as possible, I have tried to keep my draft neutral since I am aware that, because I work with Huawei, I have a possible conflict of interest (as I have noted above).

The reason that I have written a suggested new version of the article's History section is that the current version does not comprehensively cover the company's history. In addition, the current section is lacking citations for some pieces of information and includes many technical terms that readers may not be familiar with. The inclusion of the timeline in the current History section is rather confusing as some information is repeated, while other information in the timeline is not mentioned in the paragraphs above it and has no citation.

For my draft, I have used the current section as a basis and tried to expand on information currently in the article to create a more complete history of Huawei. I have added citations to reliable sources for all facts and have tried to provide context or explanations for any technical terms. I have removed the timeline that is in the current section, to reduce repetition and confusion, making sure that any information from the timeline is included in my text with a citation. The draft section is written chronologically and I have added subheadings to break up the text and make it more accessible. The subsections that I suggest are: Early years, International Expansion, Investment and partnerships, and Recent performance. In particular, I have expanded the sections on the founding of the company and the expansion of the company, to include important information not present in the current section.

I would appreciate if another editor could read my draft and provide constructive feedback, if necessary, for any improvements that can be made. If you find that the draft significantly improves on the current section, and it is appropriate to do so, I hope that you will make the replacement. If you have feedback or questions on the draft, or about improving the Huawei article, I will be pleased to respond to you here or on my talk page. Thanks --Bouteloua (talk) 18:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Since I wrote the above message, an editor has responded to my request for help on my Talk page and has now replaced the History section with my draft version. I can answer any questions you may have about this new version of Huawei's History section and would be happy to receive suggestions or help with further improvements to the article. Thank you --Bouteloua (talk) 14:06, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Corporate governance

Continuing from my messages above, I have now written a draft of a new section that I believe would be a good addition to the Huawei article, and would like to ask for an editor to read through and provide comments. This is a short draft section detailing the company's corporate governance, and in particular provides a list of the board members of Huawei. You can read the draft in my user space here: User:Bouteloua/Huawei Corporate governance draft. As with my previous draft my aim has been to write as neutrally as possible and to add important information to the article. If another editor could read my draft and advise me of any improvements that can be made, or if it would be okay to add this to the article. Thank you --Bouteloua (talk) 18:15, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I have now added this section (now named "Corporate leadership") to the article, per this note from an editor who reviewed my draft. If there are any questions or suggestions that you may have with regards to this section, I would be happy to respond to them. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Competitive position draft

I would like to help update and fix the Competitive position section, and in order to do this the right way, I would again like to ask for assistance from another editor in reviewing a draft version. The draft is available in my user space here: User:Bouteloua/Huawei Competitive position draft

Instead of adding much new material,what I have tried to do is verify and correct what is there now. The draft is split into three parts: details about Huawei's sales are now all under a "Sales" subsection, while all information on awards is under a subsection named "Recognition". The section now provides current information on Huawei's ranking as a telecom equipment manufacturer. I have also added up-to-date information on the number of patent applications, and patents granted. Within the new "Recognition" section, recent awards have been added, including those Huawei received at the LTE World Summit in May 2011, bringing this section up-to-date. Details on the company's rankings and market share prior to 2008 have been removed as they were outdated. I have also removed the paragraph on softswitch licenses, as this was outdated and less relevant than the global market share ranking. I would be grateful for another editor reading my draft and offering any feedback they can provide, or replacing the current section if the draft is not found to need significant changes. If I can answer any questions or you would like to send me any comments, I can respond here or on my user page, and welcome your input. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 19:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Following review of the draft section by another editor, on their advice (see Talk page note), I have now replaced the Competitive position section with my draft. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have about this section, or if you would like to assist with further improvements to the article. Thank you, --Bouteloua (talk) 18:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Products and services

I have now added to the article a rewritten version the "Products and product deployment" section, which I have now re-named Products and services. If you have any questions about this updated section, I am happy to reply here, and appreciate any feedback. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 19:43, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Assessing and improving "Criticisms and controversy" section

Since late May I have contributed new content to this article in reasonably uncontroversial subject areas. Now I would like to suggest changes to the "Criticism and controversy" section. I believe the suggestions I would like to make are not in of themselves controversial, but the subject matter is certainly one to be very careful with. I therefore wish to start carefully, and focus just on the current Alleged technology theft subsection. In order to be very clear, I will include both the current paragraph and my suggested revision in the body of this Talk page. First, here is what currently appears in the entry:

===Alleged technology theft===

In February 2003 Cisco Systems filed motion for preliminary injunction against Huawei Technologies, quoting the defendant to be "engaged in blatant and systematic copying of Cisco's router technology". Cisco examined Huawei's operating system (VRP) and "found telltale signs that it was developed using Cisco's source code". In July 2004 Cisco, Huawei and 3Com filed a stipulation and order of dismissal with prejudice in the lawsuit filed by Cisco against Huawei in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, which means that Cisco can't bring another lawsuit against Huawei asserting the same or substantially similar claims.

Huawei Technologies became the focus of a major intellectual property scandal again later in 2004, when a Huawei employee was examining and photographing circuit boards from a competitor's booth at the SuperComm tradeshow. In February 2009, the President of Indonesian mobile carrier Excelcomindo Pratama accused a visiting Huawei employee of trying to steal data from his firm, but confirmed that no data was stolen. Huawei suspended the employee. In July 2010, US-based mobile vendor Motorola Inc filed an amended complaint against Huawei claiming loss of confidential information to the Chinese company.

The version I propose instead:

===Intellectual property rights===

In February 2003 Cisco Systems sued Huawei Technologies for allegedly infringing on its patents and illegally copying source code used in its routers and switches. In July 2004, the case was resolved with Cisco dropping its charges against Huawei, with Huawei and its partner 3Com winning a court order preventing Cisco from bringing another lawsuit against Huawei asserting the same or substantially similar claims. In June 2004 a Huawei employee was caught photographing circuit boards from a competitor booth at the SuperComm tradeshow. The employee denied the accusation, but was later dismissed.

In July 2010, Motorola filed an amended complaint that named Huawei as a co-defendant in its case against Lemko for alleged theft of trade secrets. The case against Huawei was subsequently dropped in April 2011. In January 2011, Huawei filed a lawsuit against Motorola to prevent its intellectual property from being illegally transferred to Nokia Siemens Networks ("NSN") as part of NSN’s US$1.2 billion acquisition of Motorola's wireless network business. In April 2011, Motorola and Huawei entered into an agreement to settle all pending litigation, with Motorola paying an undisclosed sum to Huawei for the intellectual property that would be part of the sale to NSN.

In a further move to protect its intellectual property, Huawei filed lawsuits in Germany, France and Hungary in April 2011 against ZTE for patent and trademark infringement. The following day, ZTE countersued Huawei for patent infringement in China.

Note, I don't know how to show references at the end of each section only, so you will have to verify for yourself. However, my sources are primarily Reuters, New York Times, industry journal Light Reading and similar sources.

Anyway, my perspective on the existing section is that it is written with bias against Huawei, and presents some information that is not significant within the context of Huawei's dealing with intellectual property rights, let alone its dispute with Cisco. My draft aims to provide a more balanced summary of the Cisco case in 2003, explaining the basis of the court case and the final outcome. The existing section uses quotes rather than summarising the case, resulting in a biased and idiosyncratic description of the events.

Next, the current section mentions events involving actions taken by two employees of Huawei. Huawei acknowledges these incidents, and took action in each case, and these employee actions should not be considered representative of the company as a whole. I have rewritten the sentence about the SuperComm tradeshow to remove the phrase "major intellectual property scandal" which does not appear in the source, and is an inaccurate description besides. Next, I suggest removing the sentence on Excelcomindo Pratama, as this event was related to a single employee acting on their own initiative, as confirmed by Excelcomindo, and who confirmed that no data was stolen.

Meanwhile, I have also made two additions to the section, first to the Motorola case, providing a more complete explanation and detailing the results of the case. In the existing section, there is no mention of the outcome or that Huawei was a co-defendent in the case, and nothing at all about the agreements which settled the case. This seems like an important thing to mention. To the end of the section, I added a short paragraph on Huawei's recent lawsuits against ZTE and the countersuit by this company, to bring the section up to date. And because there is more to Huawei's involvement with intellectual property than being accused of theft, I have renamed the section "Intellectual property rights", which is more appropriate as the section focuses on intellectual property, and does not simply detail instances of "alleged technology theft" as the current title suggests.

I invite other editors to review these changes and if you agree they are an improvement and reasonable, to implement them directly. I will not act on these suggested edits for the time being, but hope to find consensus to do, and make this section more accurate. If there has been no comment for a week, then I may add some or all of these myself. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I have now made the suggested changes in the article as there have been no objections, but I will continue to check this page for any comments from other editors. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 21:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I have read the sources for Cisco - Huawei intellectual rights dispute and it is fairly evident that Huawei have done changes to documentation and software (VRP?) even before the lawsuit was dropped. This has been acknowledged by Cisco, so the case was resolved to benefit of both parties, which is worth saying. I could not get an official Huawei's acknowledgment of change, please let me know if there is a need to find more sources / evidence on this case.

With respect to Huawei - ZTE lawsuit, I do not see much value in this information unless it there is an injunction (or out-of-court-regulation as with Cisco) Ckt2packet (talk) 03:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have undone the edit that an anonymous user has made to this section, per the BRD cycle. I think Bouteloua did the right thing and proposed his change here, as well as his reasons, then made those changes after no objections were made, forming a silent consensus. While consensus can change, changes should be discussed as opposed to simply reverting back to the old version. If there are objections to the new wording of the section please discuss them here. Thank you. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 22:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not a place for political discussions, it is a collection of cross-referenced material. I see nothing wrong with additions by Bouteloua and other users; removing material is vandalism. Ckt2packet (talk) 00:57, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• • Political discussion? From what I could see most of their addition was removed. Please correct me if I am wrong. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 02:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Please be very careful assessing the body of edits. I have just grepped the entire version (01:46, 10 September 2011) to (21:50, 8 September 2011). The former has 141 citations, the latter 146. I have not identified any links or content that was removed. Please update me if you see any. As for quoting Huawei's official responses and efforts clearly and separately, I think it is proper and expresses the balancing views. So I have renamed the section name to match it. Ckt2packet (talk) 03:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Suggested improvement to "Western security concerns"

It has been a short while since I have been able to spend time on the Huawei article, but I am now able to continue suggesting what I hope are agreed to be improvements. Following from my note above, I would like to make some additional changes to the "Criticisms and controversy" section. I have prepared a new draft, which I propose be used to replace the current Western security concerns section. As the current section addresses concerns in India, as well as Western countries such as the UK and U.S., I suggest that it be renamed "Security concerns". As mentioned in my previous messages above, I am not sure how to list the references on this page, but if you look in the "Edit" tab, sources include The Times, Wall Street Journal and Newsweek and all information is verifiable.

The new version I propose:

===Security concerns===

Huawei has been challenged in some business deals, due to perceived ties with the Chinese People's Liberation Army, given that Ren Zhengfei, the founder of the company, served as an engineer in the army in the early 1980s. In the UK, the Conservative Party raised concerns about security over Huawei’s bid for Marconi in 2005, and the company's equipment was mentioned as an alleged potential threat in a 2009 government briefing by Alex Allan, the Chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee. In December 2010, Huawei opened a Cyber Security Evaluation Centre where its hardware and software solutions will be tested to ensure their ability to withstand growing cyber security threats. In the U.S., some members of Congress raised questions about the company's proposed merger with communications company 3Com Corp in 2008, and its bid for a Sprint contract in 2010. In addition, Huawei withdrew its purchase of 3Leaf systems in 2010, following a review by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment.

In a 2011 open letter, Huawei stated that the security concerns are “unfounded and unproven” and called on the U.S. government to investigate any aspect of its business. U.S.-based non-profit organization the Asia Society carried out a review of Chinese companies trying to invest in the U.S., including Huawei. The organization found that that only a few investment deals were blocked following unfavorable findings by the CFIUS or had been given a recommendation not to apply, however all large transactions had been politicized by groups including the U.S. media, members of Congress and the security community.

In October 2009, the Indian Department of Telecommunications reportedly requested national telecom operators to "self-regulate" the use of all equipment from European, U.S. and Chinese telecoms manufacturers following security concerns. Huawei's contract with BSNL, India's national network, was subsequently delayed in December 2009. In June 2010, an interim solution was introduced that would allow the import of Chinese-made telecoms equipment as long as the telecom operator guaranteed that the equipment does not pose any security threat.

The current section appears to have been written with bias against Huawei and some information included does not represent the situation correctly. This is particularly true with regards to the paragraph on Huawei's contracts in India. My draft summarizes the current section and notes the response from Huawei and the Asia Society to security concerns that have been raised. I have added an explanatory note at the start of the section to provide some background on why security concerns have been raised in the past. Following the information about concerns in the UK, I have added a sentence about the testing center that was subsequently established.

In addition to rewriting the currently present information, the draft includes a new paragraph regarding Huawei's open letter in 2011 and a study by the Asia Society on perceived security threats from Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturers, including Huawei.

I have rewritten the paragraph on Huawei's contracts in India to more accurately represent the situation. For instance, the sources used currently do not actually suggest that there was a security concern from Huawei's equipment that led to their contract being placed on hold, and I do not believe this claim has been previously lodged. This has therefore been omitted.

As with my previous drafts, I would like to ask that other editors review this new draft and make the edits if they are acceptable. For the moment, I will not carry out the changes directly, however I may do so if there has been no comment for a week. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

As there have been no objections, I have now added the rewritten section to the article. I will continue to check this page for any comments. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the rewrite, it looks good. I have also recently had a chance and check the sources quoted. I found two interesting things: (1) the interim solution not merely calls for "safe equipment" but explicitly lists authoritive agencies and (2) Asia society is sponsored by Huawei, which adds a new angle to their research. I am adding both notes and hope we can keep this article neutral and close to facts. Ckt2packet (talk) 03:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Suggested Reorganization of Criticism and Controversy section

Dear colleagues, I have noticed the subject section to grow rapidly and without structure.

The issue at hand is that we see observe many controversies around Huawei in press and analyst publications; yet, the company has (and should have) a right to respond to the allegations. It is also understood that Huawei employees want to contribute by recording the official company responses on Wikipedia.

It is, however, unwieldy to lump together the sources and counter-cases as the text becomes difficult to read.

Perhaps we should cleanly separate the arguments of both sides into subsections, one representing the pro- and one contra- Huawei position on different matters. It would also help to group the material better as one company action or mitigation may apply to different instances of controversy.

Please let me know if this sounds like a good idea or if you think we should just keep this section growing organically into a bowl of pasta. Ckt2packet (talk) 03:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggested improvements USD and CNY dollars

The article is misleading sometimes talks about CNY others US dollars. We should use only one currency. The following sentence is wrong: "In 2010, Huawei recorded revenues of USD$28 billion,[11] and its products and services have been deployed in more than 140 countries." Huawei record revenues of CNY 28 billion not USD! The article is in English so I suggest to use only one currency and not mix up with CNY.

Other misleading sentence: "Huawei's revenues in 2010 accounted for 15.7% of the $78.56 billion global carrier-network-infrastructure market, putting the company second behind the 19.6% share of Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, according to market-research firm Gartner." Are we talking about USD or CNY? It's in CNY but the sentence can mislead a lot of people.

Can we convert all the currency in USD? Not mix up with CNY RMB etc. ?> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.33.107.88 (talk) 21:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggested improvements to History, Products and Services and Competitive Position sections

There appears to be a lot of overlap between those sections, which makes the article look hairy:

• "recent performance" lists recent sales figures, which also are relevant to "competitive position / sales"
• "investments and partnerships" includes Grameenphone award that should go to "competitive position /recognitions'
• not sure if it's worth to provide revenue breakdown in Telecom/Global Services/Devices sections. These figures are internal and do not add much value as vendors are generally free to distrubute revenue between business units as they see fit.
• not sure if there is a need to quote financial data older than 2010 - if there is, it would be better have a graph.

Hope someone can do the clean-up ) Ckt2packet (talk) 03:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussing "Security concerns"

I am not a technical expert but have come to the conclusion that the big stoush re Huawei is partly economical/business but it looks mostly like they might have refused to build in a backdoor for echelon

(see wikipedia article what they do). If echelon were not able to sniff telecommunications going through Huawei, of course they will be prohibited from operating. Given that, this could come out in Huawei's US court case. In order to prevent things becoming public, I expect an out of court settlement. It becomes clear that security is a euphemism for war preparations.Ally Hauptmann-Gurski 2001:8003:AC60:1400:CD43:D6F9:C250:6512 (talk) 02:55, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Ckt2packet, I have a question for you about the "Security concerns" section of this article. As you know, in August I proposed a replacement "Security concerns" section on this page. Because of my declared COI, I sought input from another editor who had been involved on this page, and once it seemed clear there weren't any objections, I moved it a few days later. That version of the section can be found here. Within a few days, you started making numerous changes to this very section, and the current version is here.

I think that we may have some disagreements about what should be in this section, but my initial concern is that your edits have reduced its readability. Some of the formatting is simply wrong and the writing is now less clear. In the interests of making the section easier to read and accommodating all relevant information, I'd like to suggest that we replace the first three paragraphs of your current version with the first two paragraphs of my previous version, and then discuss content changes on this page. In this way we can restore a higher quality of writing but also work out our possible differences about details to include. Let me know if this is OK with you. Thanks, Bouteloua (talk) 13:57, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I was asked for my views on this by Bouteloua. My opinion is that the prior wording was far better in terms of writing and readability, and in my view a pretty balanced description of the issues which was not overly favourable to Huawei. Much of the new wording is in my view overly general for this article and is better suited to an article dealing more generally with US-China/China-US FDI. I would support going back to the prior wording as suggested above, and then discussing any necessary edits here. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Rangoon11. I have gone ahead and made the change I outlined above: replacing the first three paragraphs of the section with the first two paragraphs from the version I drafted. Do you have any thoughts on the rest of that section? The paragraph on Huawei's contracts in India now mentions the cancellation of a contract with BSNL in 2005, which is unrelated to the later security concerns. I would suggest that this sentence be removed and the following one amended to give a clearer version of events. Currently that sentence states:

In 2010, Indian security intelligence (CBI) insisted on canceling the rest of the Huawei contract with BSNL and pressed charges against several top BSNL officers regarding their "doubtful integrity and dubious links with Chinese firms".

This wording gives the impression that the security agency canceled the contract, however, according to the sources used it was BSNL who canceled the contract. In addition, the sources do not mention charges being pressed against the BSNL officials, rather allegations were made against them in reports sent to India's Central Vigilance Commission, so the end of this sentence is incorrect.

Regarding the information about possible security concerns in Australia, this paragraph does not seem to add any useful information, would you agree?

Thanks again for your feedback so far, I hope that you are able to help further with making this section more accurate and readable. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 20:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

To Bouteloua: Your edit from Oct 03 is not acceptable because it violates main Wikipedia principles: neutrality, no self-research and proper citations. In particular, please consider the following examples: the perceived ties of Huawei to PLA were entertained by US Congress and should be linked to their background material (Pentagon files etc), not Huawei's statements from 2011. The latter should be properly referenced as company's response, not the original statement. Likewise, Asia Society report well explains media outcry over Huawei in US - but comes at a cost of being sponsored by Huawei. These are all well-referenced facts. I am all for expressing alternate views over matters and would welcome you to participate, but let's keep known facts straight Ckt2packet (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC).

Ckt2packet, thank you for your note here, however, I think that you may not have examined my edit closely. There is no original research (I believe this is what you mean by "self-research") in this section that I am aware of. I'm also concerned by your statement that the perceived ties to the PLA are not referenced correctly - I compared my edit with your current one and can see no difference in the references used other than I had omitted the Pentagon reference (which I am happy to add). I am uncertain what you mean by "the latter should be referenced as company's response", the edits I made were clear what was the response of the company (i.e. the open letter). In addition, you have mentioned that the Asia Society is "financially dependent" on Huawei, whereas from the reference you have added it is clear that Huawei is just one of 13 major corporate sponsors, each donating over $50,000, therefore it is unlikely that the Society is "dependent" on Huawei.

The main issue with your edits is that you have reduced the readability of the section and introduced incorrect formatting. There are multiple errors of grammar and missing punctuation, all of which make the section less clear. An uninvolved editor who has read the section has also agreed with this, and supported the edits that I made. If you read through the version of the section I had edited closely, you will see that it is all the same information included currently, but it has been edited to better follow Wikipedia's summary style and present the information logically. This makes the section more readable, while including the same information and same references.

As stated above, I can add the Pentagon reference into my version of the section and I'm happy to address any specific issues that you bring to my attention. Since my edits have been supported by uninvolved editors I will revert (and add the Pentagon reference) and suggest that we discuss here any changes needed to the section. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Bouteloa, the issue at hand is that this section describes multiple viewpopints (two or more). They should be clearly represented, but not mixed. For one example, your edit restores the 2011 Huawei's self-issued statements as a reference to US congress doubts. This is not the place for it. For another example, in your edit there is an implication that US congress probed Huawei due to the chairman's former PLA duty. Again, this is not the only concern in the source document and should not be linked to chronologically different article. For third example, in UK the creation of Security Test Center came as company's (rightful) response to a probe. For a fourth example, it is very appropriate to note that Asia Society is financially supported by many organizations - including Huawei.

In a nutshell, when expressing multiple points of view, it is easiest to separate them in distinct paragraphs and avoid mixing references between them. Whatever one side says is not necessarily true or relevant to the other side.

This said, your October 5 edit does not add information - but subtracts from what's already available. This is not good, as we should strive for clear and concise summary of references with minimum intepretation. I hope you will understand and reconsider your changes. Ckt2packet (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC).

Hi Ckt2packet, I appreciate you discussing here on the talk page before making any edits. To respond to your notes: first, the citations for the Congress probes are both secondary sources (the Washington Times and New York Times), not self-issued statements from Huawei. Secondly, it is clear from the source material that, while other concerns are mentioned, the source of security concerns (the focus of this section) about Huawei is the perception it has links with PLA, and a reason for this perception is that its CEO was once an officer in the PLA (this is mentioned in the New York Times source). Thirdly, from context it is clear that Huawei's security test center in the UK was established as a response to concerns in that country - the sentence follows logically on from the previous one mentioning the security briefing. Finally, it would be inappropriate to raise doubts about Asia Society unless a reliable third party source has so written about it. Can you provide a third party source which mentions concerns about Huawei being a donor to the Asia Society?

And as far as I am aware, it is quite usual in Wikipedia articles to include the response to an opinion within the same paragraph, and I do not think that there is any confusion caused by this in the "Security concerns" section. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I still think there are several issues unresolved in this section. For one - I believe the quoted sources should whenever possible be valid at the time of referenced action, not second-added past the original events. Best example - perceived military ties of Huawei. By the time of US congress inquiry, the employment record of Mr. Zhengfrei was out of concern; in fact, the quotation from Pentagon came based on their suspicion that Huawei (as a company) remains an active defense supplier. For another example - I do believe the opposing view points are still not properly marked. For instance, Asia Society report is (along with other similar activities) - a clear lobbyist effort on Huawei side. In US, lobbying is legal whenever it is clearly identified and illegal otherwise - hence hiding information about sponsorship would normally be scandalous. Overall, I believe this section is gradually getting better but still has a long way to go. Ckt2packet (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:36, 1 November 2011 (UTC).

Hi again, Ckt2packet, thank you for your note, I appreciate you raising these points here. I understand your point about the Pentagon report, but I do not think it is correct to say that the perceived ties with the PLA is due to "suspicion that Huawei (as a company) remains an active defense supplier", as this is not specifically stated in the report. With regards to the Asia Society, as previously mentioned, it is not appropriate to raise concerns about it "lobbying" for Huawei unless this has been mentioned by a third party. The society is not actually a lobbying organization - as you can see from its website - and Huawei is just one of many sponsors of this large organization (in fact, not even a major sponsor - per this list from the Asia Society website). I hope that this clears things up a little. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Bouteloua, let's continue improving the section. I believe the current wording "In the US, Huawei has been challenged due to concerns of U.S. security officials that Huawei-made telecommunications equipment is designed to allow unauthorized access by the Chinese government and the Chinese People's Liberation Army" is good, but links supporting this statement are wrong as they mostly point to Huawei's self-issued statements. The 1st level evidence used publicly in US stems from unclassified material periodically prepared for congress, such as this latest report www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2011_cmpr_final.pdf. The 2nd level evidence comes from major US newspapers quoting unofficial sources, such as Washington Post article “Between U.S. and China, a Trust Gap,” Washington Post, October 8, 2010." on NSA warning for AT&T.

Please note that we cannot and should not attempt to establish the cause-effect relations in wikipedia, we merely record facts. If reputable publications exist - we just reference them without judgment. Same goes for Asia Society case - note that I am all for collecting and expressing all information relevant to telecom sector. However, wikipedia cannot (and should not) be used for unilateral statements - if Huawei sponsors Asia Society, it should be mentioned as a fact. The reader may do self-research, we (editors) cannot.

Ckt2packet (talk) 04:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Improving article introduction

Over the last few months a lot of improvements have been made to the Huawei article, however the article's introduction has not been updated to reflect these changes. Some information is out of date, such as the number of telecoms operators served, while other information is incorrect, such as the date the company was founded. The current introduction also lists all of the research and development centers, which does not seem necessary. I would like to suggest some edits, to bring this up to date and provide a better introduction to the article. I have replaced some of the current citations with more recent ones, new sources include Businessweek and China Daily, you can see these by viewing the edit tab.

The proposed new introduction:

Huawei (officially Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.) is a global networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It is the largest networking and telecommunications equipment supplier in China and the second-largest supplier of mobile telecommunications infrastructure equipment in the world (after Ericsson), serving 45 of the world's 50 largest telecoms operators.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei and is a privately held company owned by its employees. Its core business segments are: Telecom Networks, building telecommunications networks; Global Services, offering global equipment, operational services, and consulting services for enterprise customers; and Devices, manufacturing electronic communications devices. Huawei has more than 110,000 employees, 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). In 2010, the company invested CNY 16,556 million in R&D. Huawei has established 20 R&D institutes in countries including the U.S., Germany, Sweden, Russia, India and China.

In 2010, Huawei recorded revenues of USD$28 billion, and its products and services have been deployed in more than 140 countries.

This new version includes updated information about the revenue of the company and the number of employees. It also provides an overview of the business areas of Huawei and summarizes information about its R&D activities. I have also updated the number of telecoms operators served by Huawei and corrected the date that the company was founded.

I will not make these edits directly for the time being, as I would appreciate if any interested editors could review this draft, to provide feedback or make the edits if they find them to be acceptable. I will wait for comments, but if there have been no objections to the changes, I may make the edits myself. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:02, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm largely supportive of the new lead. I have made a few tweaks as shown in the draft below, which are mainly aimed at tightening up the text.

Huawei (officially Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.) is a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It is the largest China-based networking and telecommunications equipment supplier and the second-largest supplier of mobile telecommunications infrastructure equipment in the world (after Ericsson), serving 45 of the world's 50 largest telecoms operators.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei and is a private company owned by its employees. Its core activities are building telecommunications networks; providing equipment, operational services and consulting services to enterprise customers; and manufacturing electronic communications devices for the consumer market. Huawei has over 110,000 employees, around 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). Huawei has 20 R&D institutes in countries including China, Germany, India, Russia, Sweden and the United States, and in 2010 invested CNY 16,556 million in R&D.

In 2010, Huawei recorded revenues of USD$28 billion, and its products and services have been deployed in more than 140 countries.

I have nothing against the wording 'serving 45 of the world's 50 largest telecoms operators' if it can be properly cited, otherwise I feel it is a bit too promotional.

Rangoon11 (talk) 15:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Rangoon11, thank you for your feedback and the helpful edits. A Businessweek article from September 15 notes the "45 out of 50" figure, so I have added the appropriate citation into the draft you edited above. I hope that this will suit? --Bouteloua (talk) 16:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes that works for me. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to move that bit of text to the third paragraph though, purely because it is rather short at present, giving this:

Huawei (officially Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.) is a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It is the largest China-based networking and telecommunications equipment supplier and the second-largest supplier of mobile telecommunications infrastructure equipment in the world (after Ericsson).

Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei and is a private company owned by its employees. Its core activities are building telecommunications networks; providing equipment, operational services and consulting services to enterprise customers; and manufacturing electronic communications devices for the consumer market. Huawei has over 110,000 employees, around 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). It has 20 R&D institutes in countries including China, Germany, India, Russia, Sweden and the United States, and in 2010 invested CNY 16,556 million in R&D.

In 2010, Huawei recorded revenues of USD$28 billion. Its products and services have been deployed in more than 140 countries and it currently serves 45 of the world's 50 largest telecoms operators.

Rangoon11 (talk) 17:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The change you suggest looks good to me, you're right that it does work well to include that information at the end of the introduction. Thank you again for your input on the draft, it is much appreciated. I think that if there are no other comments within the next day or so, I may make the edits, however I welcome any further changes you might have in mind. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 20:44, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

No worries. I think that the new lead could benefit from expansion in due course but this is a step forward over the current text. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I have now moved it into place. --Bouteloua (talk) 14:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Galloway167 (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I removed the link referenced by "owned by its employees" as that link was to a page describing an employee stock ownership plan for a public company. Its not even clear to me that "owned" is the correct term here as it is my understanding that employees only own stock while they are employees, that they can not sell that stock and that it returns to the company when they leave. So that doesn't really seem like "owning" to me. But, Im not sure what would be more descriptive.

I also added a reference/footnote for FutureWei Technologies as the entity that does R&D in the US for Huawei. FutureWei does not appear to even have their own website, but having interviewed several times at their Santa Clara building, that IS the name of the firm, though really just a sub-shell of the parent Huawei. That does prevent Huawei stock ownership (whatever that means as per above) for US employees of Futurewei. Galloway167 (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions to improve "Treatment of workforce and customers"

Hi, following from the improvements to the rest of the "Controversy and response to criticisms" section, I have prepared a new draft for the "Treatment of workforce and customers" section, which I believe is an upgrade on the current section. I would like to suggest that the draft be used to replace the current section, which contains some irrelevant information and inaccuracies, and does not provide Huawei's response to any of the described events.

The suggested new version can be viewed in my user space here: User:Bouteloua/Huawei_Treatment_of_workforce_and_customers_draft.

The information in the draft section has been reordered so that the first half focuses on customers and the second half focuses on treatment of employees. I have removed the sentence that appears at the start of the current section (regarding the employee who was suspended for attempting to copy files from Excelcomindo Pratama) — this was previously part of the "Intellectual property rights" section and does not fit with the topic of this section, as it pertains to an isolated incident and does not speak to how Huawei deals with clients or employees in general.

The paragraph on Safaricom did not accurately represent the information in the source material, nor did it appropriately attribute opinions to the source. For example, the statement that the Safaricom CEO "struggled to cancel a deal sourced by Huawei" should be attributed to the Wikileaks cable. I have edited this paragraph to include correct attribution and remove information that was not included in the source. In addition, I have added a response from Michael Joseph regarding the Wikileaks cable. The paragraph regarding Huawei's operations in India also needed editing to provide a factually correct version of events and attribution of information to the sources. Here too, I have added Huawei's response to the allegations. Finally, I have made a few small copy edits to the material regarding Huawei's workforce and also added in a detail about Huawei's recent efforts with regards to health and safety.

If any editor would like to review my suggested edits and provide feedback, or make the edits directly if they find them to be an improvement on the current version, that would be most welcome. For the moment I will not make any changes and will wait for input from other editors, however I may make the edits myself if there are no objections. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 22:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Australia security concerns

At the end of the "Security concerns" section, there is currently a short paragraph on alleged Australian security concerns. Having read the source material carefully it does not seem to me that the first statement is an accurate reflection of the source. The first source, The Australian reported that all of the vendors bidding for the contract with the Australian National Broadband Network were being reviewed by a government panel, and the newspaper placed emphasis on previous claims made against Huawei. Despite that, the article does not state that the bid for the network was "threatened" due to the proposal by Optus of using Huawei as a vendor. (This Wikileaks article states that the implication that Huawei posed a security risk to Australia may have begun with Telstra, following their rejection from the bidding process.) The news item from Reuters does not mention Huawei at all, and implies that the tender was cancelled due to wider issues with the bidding, rather than any of the vendors. Additionally, it explains that the tender was "controversial" due to the rejection of the bid from Telstra, and does not mention security concerns. The source for the final sentence, regarding ASIO investigation does not contain any confirmation from ASIO that there was such an investigation. The Australian reports that it believes an investigation is taking place, however it is not clear that this is definitely the case, and in the article this is denied by a Huawei spokesperson.

I would like to propose removing the material and adding the first citation (The Australian article "Chinese spy fears over broadband story") to those supporting the first sentence of this section, about Huawei having been challenged in some deals. Due to my potential conflict of interest, I'd be grateful for another editor to review my suggestion and make the change if it seems acceptable. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Note on edits

A few days ago an editor added a new sentence to the introduction, cited to a Wall Street Journal article. It's a legitimate topic, but its placement is problematic: it was added to the article's introduction. According to MOS:LEAD, "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." For this reason, I have moved it down to the "Security concerns" section. I'm not certain this is the best overall solution, and the sentence should be rewritten, but it should work for now.

Secondly, in the two sections directly above on this Talk page, I had offered suggestions to improve this article. Because of WP:COI I am very careful to seek input from other editors when making signifcant changes. Regarding the two requests above, I have made several attempts to seek comment from other editors, but a few weeks have elapsed with no response. I am confident that the edits are reasonable, so following from WP:SILENCE I've now implemented the changes and removed the request tags I had placed. As always, I am open to discussing any changes with this article. --Bouteloua (talk) 19:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggesting an addition

 Done Gnangarra 04:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Just over a week ago, a sentence on Iran was added into the introduction of the article and, per my note above, I moved this into the "Security concerns" section. As Huawei has now published a statement in response to the Wall Street Journal article (the source for the sentence), I would like to suggest an addition to the section and also a rewording of the original sentence. The current sentence is poorly written and implies that Huawei intentionally aided censorship, when this is not stated in the source article.

The original wording is:

In October 2011 Wall Street Journal revealed Huawei Technologie has offered censorship equipments to Iranian government against Iranian people.

The wording I propose is:

In October 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that Huawei had become Iran's leading provider of telecommunications equipment, including monitoring technologies that could be used for surveillance. Huawei responded with a statement claiming the story misrepresented the company's involvement: "We have never been involved and do not provide any services relating to monitoring or filtering technologies and equipment anywhere in the world".

Since I work with Huawei, I am aware that I have a potential conflict of interest. Due to this, I would greatly appreciate if another editor could review my proposed edit and make the change if it is acceptable. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 14:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

As I have not yet received any response to the above note, and I would also like to propose a change to the sentence on the Taliban in the "Security concerns" section, I have also made a request at the Conflict of interest Noticeboard. --Bouteloua (talk) 15:36, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

First one, done - per WP:BRD; later one, please be more specific and re-request. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  22:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

My apologies, I linked to the noticeboard where I'd posted the request, but did not note here the change I propose to the Taliban sentence. This sentence was added to the "Security concerns" section early last week and it implies that Huawei was shown to have a connection with the Taliban, when this is not the case according to later news articles.

The original wording of the sentence on the Taliban is:

Huawei's ties to the Taliban were criticized in 2001.

The wording I suggest is:

In 2001, it was alleged that Huawei Technologies India had developed telecommunications equipment for the Taliban in Afghanistan, and newspapers reported that the Indian government had launched a probe into the firm's operations. Huawei responded, stating that the company did not have "any link with the Taliban", as its only customers are telecommunications carriers and its facilities "always operate according to U.N. rules and the local laws of each country". On December 15, 2001, the Indian authorities announced that they had not found any evidence that Huawei India had any connection to the Taliban.

If you think that this is an acceptable addition, I would appreciate if you could make this edit. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I was asked to check this request [6] but I'm sorry, I'm not confident in adding it, as is. In looking at news coverage, it doesn't seem as clear-cut as the paragraph above suggests. I accept that Huwei, and indeed India/Chinese press, seems to deny any connection - but other press - including more recent - contradicts that, e.g. this article says Huwei deny any connection, but adds However, in a letter to US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a group of top lawmakers accused Huawei of having "ties with the People's Liberation Army, the Taliban, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard". And Washington Times describes it as A Chinese company with ties to Beijing's military and past links to Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq and the Taliban in October 2007 [7].

Therefore, I think we need to be very careful to cover this in an appropriately neutral manner, presenting all sides of reliably-sourced opinion, with due balance.

I'm going to leave this request for others to assess.  Chzz  ►  18:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback Chzz. The point you raise is valid, there have in fact been echoes of the earlier allegations, in spite of emphatic denials. However unfortunate and unfounded, I can understand it is noteworthy that U.S. lawmakers have raised the matter. So I have made a new addition to the end of that paragraph, making note of this and using the Telecompaper source that you have provided. You will see I have not added much because there is not really any new information in these reports, merely continued speculation:

In 2001, it was alleged that Huawei Technologies India had developed telecommunications equipment for the Taliban in Afghanistan, and newspapers reported that the Indian government had launched a probe into the firm's operations. Huawei responded, stating that the company did not have "any link with the Taliban", as its only customers are telecommunications carriers and its facilities "always operate according to U.N. rules and the local laws of each country". On December 15, 2001, the Indian authorities announced that they had not found any evidence that Huawei India had any connection to the Taliban, although speculation to the contrary has persisted in the U.S.

If you feel this is now better balanced, please move this over, or share whatever feedback you may have. Thank you, Bouteloua (talk) 18:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I came to fulfill the edit request, this looks like a reasonable request. The only problem is that those references dont offer url's which makes it hard to assess the accuracy, all were accessed on 16th November is it possible for urls to be included especially AP newswires sourcing. Gnangarra 14:21, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Gnangarra, thank you for taking the time to look into this. I'm afraid that the sources I used here are from an offline news database, and I do not have urls, however I can provide the relevant quotes from each. Hopefully this will suffice?

Indian state government puts Chinese firm under microscope

by Jay Shankar

Agence France-Presse

December 10, 2001

The government of India's southern state of Karnataka has summoned senior officials of a Chinese firm based here to clarify reports that it had built equipment for the now-routed Taliban in Afghanistan, an official said Monday. "We have told company officials to be present before the Ministry of Information Technology by Thursday," said Vivek Kulkarni, Karnataka's secretary of information technology. Kulkarni, however, said officials from China's Huawei Technologies were presently out of the country and were not immediately available for comments.

"We have told them to inform us about what Huawei Technologies is doing and clarify" the media reports that the firm helped the Taliban upgrade their telecommunications network in Afghanistan, Kulkarni said. The Karnataka government earlier Monday sent officials from the Software Technology Parks of India autonomous agency to investigate the firm's activities in Bangalore, the hub of India's software industry.

---

India probes unit of Chinese firm for Taliban link

Reuters News

By Y.P. Rajesh

December 11, 2001

J. Gilbert, a senior public relations officer at Huawei's office in Bangalore, said reports linking the firm to the Taliban regime were baseless. "First of all we don't have any link with the Taliban. We are a telecoms solutions firm and only telecommunications carriers are our customers," Gilbert said by phone from Bangalore. Gilbert said Huawei India was a research and development firm which made high-tech software and did not manufacture any equipment in the first place.

---

Chinese firm denies reports that software center in India helped Taliban

Associated Press Newswires

By ELAINE KURTENBACH

December 12, 2001

"As a private company, our offices always operate according to U.N. rules and the local laws of each country," Huawei spokesman Fu Jun said in a telephone interview from company headquarters in Shenzhen, southern China. "There is no possibility that we are providing telecoms technologies to the Taliban," he said.

---

No evidence of Taliban links to Chinese firm, Indian authorities say

Associated Press Newswires

By S. SRINIVASAN

December 15, 2001

Local government officials said Saturday they have found no evidence a Chinese software company in Bangalore, India's information technology hub, had developed telecom surveillance systems for the Taliban. Huawei Technologies provided Indian officials details of the company's software research projects but none revealed any connection to the Taliban, said Vivek Kulkarni, information technology secretary for the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

If you agree this provides the information that you need, I would very much appreciate if you could make the edit. Thank you again. PS: The talk page here has become rather long and perhaps a little unwieldy, are you able to/would you archive material prior to this year? --Bouteloua (talk) 15:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Bouteloua for the additional material, I accepted that these arent available online which is why I waited a few days before fulfilling the request. For the record I was able establish that the authors exist, they work or have worked for the news sources named and reported on matters of a similar nature(topic,location,subject matter,style) for them. Given this Im happy to accept in good faith that these are representations of those sources, requested edit done. Gnangarra 04:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

References

Iran potential WSJ resource

Huawei to Scale Back Business in Iran by LORETTA CHAO, STEVE STECKLOW, and FARNAZ FASSIHI, excerpt ...

Chinese telecommunications- equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. said it will scale back its business in Iran, where the company provides services to government-controlled telecom operators, following reports that Iranian police were using mobile-network technology to track down and arrest dissidents. Shenzhen-based Huawei will "voluntarily restrict its business development there by no longer seeking new customers and limiting its business activities with existing customers," according to a statement Friday on the company's website. It said the company was making the move due to the "increasingly complex situation in Iran." Company spokesmen declined to elaborate. The action follows a front-page Wall Street ...

99.181.141.143 (talk) 01:29, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Request to remove unverified claims

On July 21 an editor using an anonymous IP address made this edit inserting several unverified and contentious claims about Huawei and its founder Ren Zhengfei. This editor added claims that Huawei is "a Chinese Communist Party backed" company that was founded "according to governmental orders" and that Ren is a "Chinese Communist Party member." Most of these have now been appropriately reverted, but the last claim still remains. No sources were provided for any of it, and no reliable sources exist. Among English-language sources, The Economist has covered Huawei and Ren Zhengfei and makes no such statements. Until one is provided, I ask that the unverified Party membership statement be removed. I would make these edits myself now, but I wish for someone else to review these first or to allow appropriate time for review, as I am working on Huawei's behalf to resolve this issue. Thank you. --Bouteloua (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the CCP statements, as there is no sources saying that they are owned by the CCP. The Economist only said that they feel like the CCP. However, I kept the ex military descriptor for Zhengfei as that appears to be fact, considering he is a former PLA member. Silverseren^C 01:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

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