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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."
unfortunately, no matter what your principles are, a pile of cash is a pile of cash. it has the magic power of a pile of cash. once cyanogenmod gets its pile of cash, we'll once again be looking for alternative roms.
unfortunately, no matter what your principles are, a pile of cash is a pile of cash. it has the magic power of a pile of cash. once cyanogenmod gets its pile of cash, we'll once again be looking for alternative roms.
Sad but true. It's a shame, becuase cyanogenmod has support for a lot of older phones that the phone manufacturers don't really support anymore.
That was my first thought. Google either wants to kill it or neuter it.
Iron fist in a velvet glove. If they don't the money an run, Google will do what it can to defrock them from Google Play. Don't know how exactly, but expect something of a "join us or die" attitude. That said, I applaud them for standing up to Google and blazing their own path to success.
Life is not for the lazy.
The value is not in the code but rather in the developers. I challenge you to take a few of your friends take the current version of cyanogen mod and get it working on the next Samsung phone when it gets released. Don't worry about upgrades or cross compatibility or the apps that the cyanogen mod team maintain, just focus on something as basic as getting it working on one new platform before you use the anyone can fork it argument.