if you havent found out already, looks like it has been released

I think you make a good point, but the point is irrelevant to the article.
The column was to address the Samsung-Huawei smartwatch and how the issue even arose: because Huawei approached Samsung about it. It seems that you overlooked that part of the equation. It may not make sense to you that Huawei would want to team up with Samsung, but Huawei at least thought about the advantages being greater with Samsung than with Google. Companies don’t have these discussions for the mere sake of having them.
As for AW, the only persons buying it are those who are in love with Google or are app-crazy, which doesn’t line up when you consider that most consumers aren’t app-crazy and, yes, to your dismay, are buying Tizen smartwatches. Do you really think the app argument holds up after all these years – that people really care that much about 1 million apps? Not really. If that were the case, then consumers would be buying AW smartwatches in droves. Oops, see the problem? AW smartwatches are still sitting on shelves collecting dust while the Gear S3 Frontier and Classic, and the Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic are selling faster than Google can clear old inventory.
The article had nothing to do with Huawei being the master of its own platform. I for one have little interest, really, in seeing that Huawei ever become independent from either Google or Samsung (Huawei hasn’t proven anything to me as a consumer that would make me take them seriously). But I do think that companies in the market should make money, and that companies that aren’t making money should do consumers a favor and bow out of the market so as to not confuse consumers that “think” those companies are giving them the best for their money. And when it comes to companies not selling smartwatches, every Android Wear OEM is on the list. Which Android Wear OEM is selling them? Which Android Wear OEM, including Huawei, is having any success on the platform? While you answer it, I’ll wait.
The truth is that Google will never give Huawei the success it wants, but at least Huawei could make money with Samsung. Tizen-powered smartwatches are what the average consumer is buying, not Android Wear, and that’s something that you and so few tech fans must live with. I don’t see AW being anything but stagnant in the next 5 years, stagnant to such a point that the “obsession” with AW is already starting to die. It’s just a matter of time before Google pulls the plug on what I see as one of its most failed projects.
Finally, let me say that Samsung and Huawei aren’t really competition in the smartwatch market, nor in much of any other mobile device for that matter. Huawei is practically nonexistent here in the US, and, as I said above, could team up with Samsung for a better outcome in its mobile strategy. One thing that has placed Samsung above Google is that the Korean giant believes in the strength of partnerships; Google, on the other hand, believes in other companies if those companies do everything Google wants it to do. Huawei wouldn’t get everything it wants with Samsung, but at least it wouldn’t be a slave to the interests of Google. I’ll take money and freedom over a few million apps in Google’s agenda-driven prison anyday.
And this is just my $100 worth, not 2 cents.