Cyanogen Inc. Turns Down Google, Seeing $1 Billion Valuation

An anonymous reader writes: According to a report at The Information (paywalled), Cyanogen Inc., the company trying to commercializa the popular CyanogenMod mobile OS based on Android, recently met with Google's Android chief to talk about an acquisition. The report says Cyanogen turned down Google's offer and instead seeks funding from investors and major tech companies at a valuation around $1 billion. "Cyanogen has told potential investors that it has a deal in place to bring its custom version of the Android OS to India through a manufacturer called Micromax. Alongside Samsung, Micromax currently holds almost as much share of the smartphone market in India, making this deal a very large step to get Cyanogen into the hands of millions of more people. Lastly, the report claims that Cyanogen should be wary of modifying Android too much. During the process, the company must continue to follow Google's compatibility requirements which ensure third-party applications will work on their devices. If those requirements are not met, devices will not be licensed to run Google's services, such as Google Play and other Google applications."

Comments

Google just pissy

[wierd_w]

Google is just in a snit that CyanogenMod is fantastically better than stock android, BECAUSE it gives power back to users.

For instance, the power to rescind permissions on installed apps, the ability to have finer control over CPU throttles, and of course, the removal of bunches of total horse-shit that gets bundled.

Google is more worried that CyanogenMod being a mainstream thing will affect their ability to have baked in adware out of the box, generating money for them. Not that CyanogenMod devices will fail to run 3rd party apps.

"Oh noes! Dont allow users to use fake geolocation! That will ruin our datamining operations! Oh no! Not our playstore advert shit too!? Did you REALLY just give users the ability to say "NO" to that app maker's blanket permissions requirement AFTER they said yes initially to let it install!? How will Facebook get its hentai tentacles into users' contact lists!? That removes the "Our way or the highway" tactic from the table!! AHHH!"

Seriously-- this is SOP for big companies that have "disruptive" competition-- Attempt to buy them out.

Google is probably pretty steamed at getting hand slapped right about now, which is why they are brandishing their oh-so-special google services apps like a cudgel now.

Re:Google just pissy

[LordLimecat]

Google is just in a snit that CyanogenMod is fantastically better than stock android,

This is a little absurd. I use and love Cyanogenmod, but calling it "better than stock" is a gross oversimplification. Upon upgrading to the recent M11 release of CM, I just got back the ability to watch netflix on my Nexus which was broken due to a driver bug. This isnt a new thing either; CM tends to have one or two new fairly irritating bugs per release, and generally lacks the polish of google's stock android.

Not to mention that CM doesnt really add that much back into android; at the moment the biggest features are
  * root (not really that important for 90% of people, and generally a nuisance as actual workplaces require you to unroot to use email). Biggest reasons I can think of for root are advanced tasker profiles (though CM Profiles generally replace tasker), TitaniumBackup, and some really really niche stuff (like CatLog, wifi tinkering stuff, etc)
  * Multi-user (which is busted right now on phones)
  * Profiles (which can mostly be replicated using tasker or similar programs on stock)
  * a lot of display customization (a lot of which you can get using alternate launchers like Nova)

As has been pointed out root does utterly break the security model of Android by allowing for actual rootkits and persistent threats.

All that said, 3rd party roms are great, but they really arent suitable for a lot of people unless those people have a specific thing theyre looking to fix. The real value of CM is in providing access to newer ROMs than may be officially supported on their phone.

Google is more worried that CyanogenMod being a mainstream thing will affect their ability to have baked in adware out of the box

Android doesnt have baked in adware, and CM doesnt remove whatever you think constitutes said adware. If you're referring to GApps, its pretty normal to add the latest GApps to CM when you flash it. If you're referring to the Apps, what do you suppose would happen to free apps in a world where everyone was running a hosts-based adblocker?

Re:Google just pissy

[BasilBrush]

Out of interest, how would you stop a man who invests his time in making and using tools from being more productive than one who sits on his ass all day drinking beer/vodka?

That's not a capitalist. A capitalist is he who takes the surplus profit from ownership of the means of production as unearned income.

Self-employed people are not automatically practicing capitalism. They may or may not be working within a capitalist system, but their own business is not a capitalistic one, unless and until they employ workers and pay them less than their fair share of the profit.