U.S. authorizes Microsoft, other companies to resume sales to Huawei

Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Software giant Microsoft has received permission from the federal government to sell software to Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies, which for months was barred from doing business with U.S. entities.

Microsoft said the Commerce Department granted a license Wednesday to export "mass-market" software to Huawei. It wasn't immediately clear, however, which products are included under that classification but federal officials said the resumption of licenses is intended for components for which there is little security risk.

Huawei, China's largest tech company and one of the world's largest smartphone makers, was condemned by the Trump administration as a threat to national security and was barred in May from transacting business with U.S. companies without express government approval.

Federal regulators resumed giving licenses to U.S. companies this week authorizing such sales.

"We've had 290-something requests for specific licenses," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. "We've now been starting to send out the 20-day intent-to-deny letters and some approvals."

The administration had provided a "support and maintenance" exemption to the ban, which was extended twice this year.

Huawei postponed the launch of a Windows-powered laptop computer this year, and Microsoft briefly stopped selling the Chinese giant's MateBook X in stores. Both companies operate the Azure hybrid cloud storage solution, which uses Huawei servers.