They basically placed their offices right across their competitors like Ericsson, Nokia, Imagination, etc. to the point that in every European Tech hub you will find a Huawei office.
The researchers get payed very well, but what (to those I met) was even more important: they get all the assistance they want, plus 1. As one of them told me "I hate doing things twice. I now do not have to. I think of something, try to get it to work and I am done. The grinding is done for me." A truly very nice environment to do research in, with a boatload of resources at their fingertips.
Just check the number of patents Huawei [0] holds.
A lot of Chinese firms knowingly violates IP laws in the past, because they understand there is not enough resources to enforce them. Additionally, Chinese government has been very open about the plan to enforce IP laws gradually to the same standard as the global market. A good balance has been played to allow rapid advancement without provoking the more advanced economies.
> Chinese government has been very open about the plan to enforce IP laws gradually to the same standard as the global market.
IMHO, these two statements contradict themselves.
Being serious about IP is to respect a rule of game, and not actually enforce it is out of necessity (are you expecting a sweat shop to actually pay loyalty and produces actual profit?) and actual recognition that building up the mechanisms of innovation will take time.
Huawei decided to place a new R&D team which focuses on network cameras in the same building were the Axis HQ are located, in Lund.
EDIT: Source (in Swedish): https://computersweden.idg.se/2.2683/1.712002/huawei-kamerav...
I worked in the NL hardware business over a decade back and that was the exact mentality management there had in regards to China and Chinese workers.
If only Nokia hadn't got dragged down by the Symbian fools
"Unfortunately, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Siilasmaa later learned that the overall build time of Symbian was two weeks." https://www.flashover.blog/posts/technical-debt/
Edit: it seems the compilation time was 2 days in that article, I wonder what the rest was.
And, instead of adopting Windows for future Macs, Apple was going all-in on Solaris.
And, Steve Jobs had just stepped down as interim CEO, and his replacement just happened to be a former Sun Microsystems executive.
And, Apple's investors were apparently okay with this.
I firmly believe that Nokia could have become a major player if they'd stayed the course with Meego-Harmatton. I owned a Nokia N9, the one phone that ran it, and it was great!.
The UI was very different from iOS, but it had all of the iPhone's polish and purposeful design. I greatly preferred it for several reasons: multi-tasking, for instance, was far more seamless than what iOS could do at the time.
Nokia's timing was right, too, and unlike Microsoft, Nokia had a deep history in the mobile space. They really could have made something.