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Petal Mail: Huawei's answer to Gmail. Also: are we getting Huawei crypto?

Dominik Bärlocher
5.3.2021
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Huawei has invited beta testers to test its Petal Mail service. In addition, signs of a virtual currency have appeared in Petal Mail's environment.

Huawei is still on the attack, full steam ahead. After its own map service, its own app store, and its own operating system – which is perhaps, possibly, maybe an Android clone – the Chinese company now shows off its Gmail competitor. Huawei called it Petal Mail, looking to outstrip Google's mail service.

Initial beta testers have already taken possession of their @petalmail.com addresses.

Visually somewhere between Gmail and Outlook

Aesthetically, Petal Mail isn't revolutionary. A menu on the far left, overview in the middle column, and on the right there's the large column with the actual mail content.

Translations for the menu items suggest an initially minimal setup of the mail service:

  • Inbox
  • Starred
  • Draft
  • Sent
  • Trash
  • Spam

What will the future hold?

Interestingly, the article in which the professional magazine ITHome presents Petal Mail also mentions «Petals». Petals are a kind of virtual currency and are currently listed at 100 petals = 1 yuan = 0.14 francs.

This suggests two things:

  1. Huawei will soon introduce its own cryptocurrency.
  2. Huawei is creating an analogue to Google Play Points, which the group introduced in November 2019, but has only been actively promoting for a few weeks now.

What definitely isn't foreseeable is the USA loosening sanctions any time soon. They continue to prohibit U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei. The unsubstantiated claims of espionage they use as evidence cannot be verified by independent experts.

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Dominik Bärlocher
Senior Editor
dominik.baerlocher@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.

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