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Microsoft To Invest In Rogue Android Startup Cyanogen
An anonymous reader writes The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft plans to be a minority investor in a roughly $70 million round of equity financing for mobile startup Cyanogen Inc. Neither company is commenting on the plan but last week during a talk in San Francisco, Cyanogen's CEO said the company's goal was to "take Android away from Google." According to Bloomberg: "The talks illustrate how Microsoft is trying to get its applications and services on rival operating systems, which has been a tenet of Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella. Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."
Waiting for your carrier for an upgrade? One that might never come? Competition is a good thing in this case.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
microsoft - we don't want your programs on Android because they suck
Until you can run whatever software you want and whatever OS you want on a smartphone we're doomed.
Will use 640k of ram and a delightful assistant named Clippy.
Kind of like Microsoft Games and Applications wont run or not until recently on other OS's or Gaming systems ?? Pot Kettle Black much?
What can I run my Nexus tablet on now that Cyanogenmod has sold out? Suggestions anyone?
Complaining about Google not letting you run your apps? Why don't you let others run their own apps on your own mobile OS first? I sure wouldn't mind having a better browser on a Windows Phone. What's next? Apple complaining that they can't run iTunes on Android?
...but last week during a talk in San Francisco, Cyanogen's CEO said the company's goal was to "take Android away from Google...
Google has most of the world's internet and Android users where it wants them and that's not good news for Microsoft. Look, how can one ever do without Youtube or the search engine Google? Guess what, you want Youtube, you MUST take Gmail, Calendar, Photos, Docs and all the rest as well. Heck, Microsoft doesn't even have a compelling YouTube alternative!
I have problems with Google's Android though. Does anyone find that it's native Android apps are kind of cumbersome to use? I specifically point to the SMS app.
What in the hell? Is Cyanogen "rogue" because they're using the Android Open-Source Project as it was designed? Because that also makes Samsung, Motorola, HTC and every other manufacturer who reskins/alters Android "rogue".
Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."
Haha, cry us a river Microsoft. I'm all for an open platform but this investment is just step 1 of their embrace, extend, extinguish operating procedure. What's that quote about how smaller companies should NEVER work with MS?
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
I'd like to see Cyanogen succeed because the more competition there is in the smartphone market, the more companies will be pressured to develop new, useful features.
I bought my first smartphone two years ago last month. It's a Samsung Galaxy S III. It still works great, despite some quirks. I felt like with the Galaxy S III, the smartphone was beginning to take a quantum leap forward in features. Especially for the last year, though, it seems like there isn't much to crow about except for some fingerprint functionality nobody uses. Phones are getting a bit more memory, somewhat faster CPUs, a bit better screens, and improved cameras but you would expect all of these things. In terms of new and interesting features, it seems like we're in a mature market where we've all decided upon what it means for a device to be a smartphone.
Perhaps Cyanogen will bring some excitement back. At worst, they'll come up with some new ideas that Samsung can license or copy. I'm using Samsung as an example, but I could be talking about HTC or one of the Chinese startups. I don't see a whole lot to distinguish current smartphones (except that Samsung does not permanently glue batteries inside of its products).
You know those Godzilla movies where the monsters stomp around Tokyo causing more destruction than WWII, destroying everything around them?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Is Microsoft preparing a Plan B for when they finally give up on Windows Mobile?
...considering that Android -- at its core -- is a form of Linux.
Three letters: EEE
And damn, slashdot mobile site is absolute ass. Doesnt even load on the latest Firefox on Android. Im guessing shitty advertising javascript is to blame.
Guess we know that's not the case now, and all of their efforts at refreshing their corporate image should be seen in this light. Same old strategy of attacking others.
Why should things be any different this time?
Why is Snark Required?
And as for Microsoft's whining about not having access to the OS layer of Android to run it's applications, I suggest they learn what the application layer is and learn to live in it. Having access to every layer of the OS today is why they are still insecure after well over a decade of security people telling them to fix their stuff.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Please let them walk into a huge secret patent thicket which serves them green, green justice.
How many people have said "I really want an android phone, but instead of integrated google search, I want it to search BING."?
gotomyPC!!!!
Not always. Even cyanogenmod has abandoned many devices that could still be viable phones today. CM seems to focus mainly on the most popular phones for the latest releases, and in some cases, the devs for a particular make/model of device have just gone MIA, and development stagnates.
Just rename cyanogenmod as SCO-cyanogenmod so that the old success will rub off on the new one too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's about control. Google and Apple makes a lot of money (search, ads) and Microsoft needs to change boats.
M$ started their OS biz because they wanted the experience and control CP/M enjoyed; there's no way they're gonna accept a secondary role willingly.
OTOH, I wanted to run a Linux program today on my Android phone and it's not available (supposed equivalents are not exactly)... users also want control.
I don't know man, I like this one. I'm also on board if MS decides to invest in ad-blocking software.
I know coming up with names isn't as easy as you would think, but, seriously, they called it cyanogen?
Trying to understand how Microsoft defines "exclusive":
MSFT will not allow a game on their device if it had an exclusive elsewhere.
Then how did any of the Xbox Live Arcade games, which were originally exclusive to proprietary arcade system boards, get released? Or are these all in the "too large to be intimidated by them" category?
This was not true in the early days of Windows Phone. Developers had to pay $100 per device per year to unlock a Windows Phone 7 device for sideloading apps, the same policy that it had applied for XNA Creators Club on Xbox 360. When did Microsoft change this policy?
Heck, Microsoft doesn't even have a compelling YouTube alternative!
whaa? videos.bing.com is a total pornucopia.
It's not the same thing. Bing Videos is a search engine, analogous to the Google Videos search engine. YouTube also offers hosting for videos uploaded by users. And in fact, for one random category I just viewed in Bing Videos two minutes ago, a large number of the videos were hosted on YouTube. Bing Videos is to Google Videos as what is to YouTube?
Google had problems with getting updates out to devices, so they decided to move many functions of Android the OS, into a Google Services library that could be upgraded when the core OS could not...
But doesn't that leave Google kind of vulnerable? In theory a different company could create their own variant of that library, take things the way they want...
I'm surprised Samsung at least has not done that, perhaps Microsoft is considering it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft has already got their hands bloody with Android, due to their FAT file system licensing, among other things. If anything Google/Android should be distancing itself from Microsoft, not letting them take over one aftermarket OS at a time.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system
When was the last time evil Microsoft blocked a program from running on one of its platforms.
Now, what patch do you wear on your $hill-iform ? M$ or Goo ?
By now Goo is Yet Another Nasty Monopolist.
Google had problems with getting updates out to devices
And with just a little bit of developer money, so many devices out there could be running a safe, secure version of Android instead of being merely abandoned and left vulnerable ("you luddites running six-month-old phones...").
I've been waiting to see a nonprofit that would sponsor such work and then sell decent smartphones to people who could use them to benefit themselves economically. People throw away ("recycle") perfectly good hardware because the software is too dated.
Oh, I know, "that dual core phone from last year with only half a gig of RAM just can't do anything useful...."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Considering that my Kitkat 4.4.2 phone uses 1.17gb with nothing running, 0.5gb sounds a little silly.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
As much as I'd love to see Google get fscked I'd really hate cyanogen to get any money from anyone. This is a company that screwed over the community that wrote most of it's code.
Wish Microsoft would find another partner to do this...
That much? Must be a Samsung with their bloat running. Root it and freeze some of those apps with Titanium Backup.
Google is paying Microsoft to invest in Cyanogen Inc to make their port awful and unusable like Windows.
has never, ever done this?
Pfft, use LBE Security Master to actually remove that shit, forget freezing it. So much useless crap on my phone gone, gone, gone now. Yes, it is capable of removing supposedly unremovable system files.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46695347#post46695347
Keep in mind that the app is developed in Chinese by a Chinese dev, this is an English/Vietnamese translation (there are also German and Russian translations done by other users), so some bits aren't 100% translated (the really important ones however, are).
Oh, and it's also capable of setting individual app permissions, per app, per permission instead of the default blanket yes or no of Android.
And if a game is exclusive on another platform doesn't that mean it's not on Microsoft's.
I had trouble understanding what you meant by this because the question-inverted word order doesn't appear to match the lack of a question mark. Did you mean "that doesn't mean..." or "doesn't that mean...?" So I'll try to reply to both interpretations:
Does being initially exclusive to Microsoft's platform (Windows) disqualify a game for a later release on Microsoft's other platform (Xbox One) once the game's developer eventually qualifies for the ID@Xbox program? If so, why should it?
The 1987 video game Contra by Konami was originally exclusive to a non-Microsoft arcade platform. In 1988 it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, another non-Microsoft platform. Yet it got a port to Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 in 2006. Did it get a pass because of the 1989 port to MSX2, a Japanese platform that shipped with Microsoft BASIC?
Android ain't done 'till Google won't run?
On what date between then and now did it change from not true to true?
Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system.
Perhaps google block it from the play store, but what is stopping microsoft from just putting up an android app site? Isn't that one of the great things about android, that you can install apps from anywhere, no need for a walled garden?
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Monkey See, Monkey Do."
"Embrace, extend, extinguish."
Microsoft's stock is crashing today after the company delivered a middling earnings report and gloomy guidance for the rest of the year. Several analysts downgraded the stock, and it's down more than 9% this morning.
Pretty harsh, considering the company wowed reporters (including me) just last week with its Windows 10 event and the introduction of an augmented reality headset called HoloLens.
So what's going on here?
In August 2013, Steve Ballmer announced his retirement as Microsoft's CEO. Investors were so frustrated with Ballmer's missteps, like whiffing on mobile and spending billions trying to beat Google in search advertising, that they were delighted. The stock is up almost 50% since Ballmer said he was leaving.
Satya Nadella is different from Ballmer. He's technical, not a sales guy. He's got a long-term vision for where tech is going and how Microsoft might capitalize on it. He doesn't seem like he'd ever take ill-advised potshots against new competitive products, like Ballmer did with the iPhone.
But despite Nadella's new tone and some of the changes he's made, Microsoft's business is basically still in the same place it was under Steve Ballmer:
Most of Microsoft's money comes from big businesses, which are starting to move to lower-margin cloud services. Steve Ballmer's greatest - and often dismissed - achievement was turning Microsoft into a serious enterprise player. In the last quarter, Microsoft got about two-thirds of its gross profit and half its revenue ($10.8 billion and $13.2 billion respectively) from its "commercial" segment - selling to businesses. But revenue from traditional software licensing was down 2%, and Microsoft warned of particularly weak performance in Japan. The big problem: cloud services book less revenue up front than traditional one-time software sales, and have higher ongoing costs. That means as Microsoft's core customers move from buying software to buying online services, Microsoft will face revenue and margin pressure in its most important segment.
Windows isn't what it used to be. Only 15% of the world's devices now access the Internet using Windows, down from more than 90% a decade ago. This is showing up in various ways: for instance, Windows revenue was down 13% from last year; the end of Windows XP support last year drove a lot of businesses to upgrade, but with that deadline passed, there's less reason to buy new PCs with Windows. Windows 10 will undo some of the missteps of Windows 8, and will be much more appealing to business users. But despite Nadella's new mantra that he wants people to "love" Windows, it's never going to dominate the world like it once did. It will be one of several big important operating systems, not the only one that matters. The collapse of a monopoly business is a long-term margin squeezer.
Microsoft is nowhere in mobile. After more than four years on the market, Windows Phone has less than 3 percent market share worldwide, and its share has been dropping, not rising. Most developers ignore it. Windows 10 is supposed to change that - it'll be easier for developers to take their Windows applications and revamp them for Windows on phones. But there's very little reason for all but the most devoted Windows developers to do any extra work to target a mobile platform that people aren't buying. Most developers have limited time! They're already busy keeping up with all the changes to Android and iOS.
Developers no longer need Microsoft. Related to the first point, because Windows no longer dominates, developers no longer have to build for Windows first. They can build for iOS, Android, or the web, and reach more people. Nadella and Microsoft seem to be laying out a long-term vision where Microsoft's platform will not only support Windows devices, but also tie back to cloud services and enable a whole bunch of new types of interactions, like augmented reality (Windows 10 will include a
Casteism