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Cyanogen Inc. Reportedly Fires OS Development Arm, Switches To Apps (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the check-is-in-the-mail dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Android Police is reporting that the Android software company Cyanogen Inc. will be laying off 20 percent of its workforce, and will transition from OS development to applications. The Android Police report says "roughly 30 out of the 136 people Cyanogen Inc. employs" are being cut, and that the layoffs "most heavily impact the open source arm" of the company. Android Police goes on to say that CyanogenMod development by Cyanogen Inc "may be eliminated entirely." Ars Technica notes the differences between each "Cyanogen" branding. Specifically, CyanogenMod is a "free, open source, OS heavily based on Android and compatible with hundreds of devices," while Cyanogen Inc. is "a for-profit company that aims to sell Cyanogen OS to OEMs." It appears that many of the core CyanogenMod developers will no longer be paid to work on CyanogenMod, though the community is still free to develop the software." Android Police details the firing process in their report: "Layoffs reportedly came after a long executive retreat for the company's leaders and were conducted with no advanced notice. Employees who were not let go were told not to show up to work today. Those who did show up were the unlucky ones: they had generic human resources meetings rather ominously added to their calendars last night. So, everyone who arrived at Cyanogen Inc. in Seattle this morning did so to lose their job (aside from those conducting the layoffs)." Early last year, Microsoft invested in a roughly $70 million round of equity financing for the then-startup Cyanogen Inc. Not too long before that, Google tried to acquire Cyanogen Inc., but the company turned down Google's offer to seek funding from investors and major tech companies at a valuation of around $1 billion. Cyanogen Inc. CEO Kirt McMaster once said the company was "attempting to take Android away from Google" and that it was "putting a bullet through Google's head."

UPDATE 7/25/16: Cyanogen CEO and cofounder Kirt McMaster took to Twitter to dispel some of the rumors, tweeting: "Cyanogen NOT pivoting to apps. We are an OS company and our mission of creating an OPEN ANDROID stands. FALSE reporting was outstanding."

10 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Applications? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There is zero money to be made in Android applications. What a disaster.

    1. Re:Applications? by cheesybagel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.
      .

    2. Re:Applications? by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Indeed. They have gone and killed what made them unique to now compete in the cheap-trash mass-market. Corporate suicide at its best.

      What will be interesting to see is whether Cyanogen Mod survives. The fired OS-group should start their own company and carry on. Maybe try Patreon financing or something like it.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Applications? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.

      Let's go around in circles, though: What made their OS development arm unique was their apps, that were designed not to work with AOSP like a well-designed app would. Meanwhile, AOKP and SOKP are supporting more devices between them than Cyanogenmod, so what do they actually have to offer other than their apps? Conclusion, stick with the apps.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. After the knife ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... there will always be forks. That's the open source way. I'm not worried.

    1. Re:After the knife ... by tripleevenfall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There will always be monopoly or fragmentation... pick your poison

  3. Re: Wow, open source is a disaster by ogdenk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know. CyanogenMod was actually doing pretty well before MS came along. Seems more like "Oprah's" money poisoned the well.

  4. Re: Wow, open source is a disaster by ogdenk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bullshit, Linux 1.2 ran quite well on my 486DX4/100 and supported all hardware. FreeBSD 2.2.8 ran nice on my K6/233. Even with basic 3D support. FreeBSD 4 ran great on my Athlon/600 with Adaptec 2940 (with a even bigger pile of SCSI drives, a Bernoulli and an Exabyte tape drive), Radeon 9200, 3COM PCI NIC and various other goodies.

    It really wasn't until purposely locked down 802.11 and mutant locked down 3D accelerators that we even NEEDED commercial backing. And it wasn't until commercial backing that people felt the need that a timesharing/server/developer/power-user OS needed to be palatable for millennial retards thus killing the appeal for most people who made it awesome to begin with. GNOME3, KDE4, SystemD..... all abominations and very un-unix-like. And..... it's still not the year of the linux desktop for grandma no matter how much you try to integrate the worst of Windows and MacOS into a bloated buggy shitshow.

    All this work over decades to replicate what UNIX users didn't want.... and then Google slaps a Java stack with a crippled poke-and-drool UI on top of the Linux kernel over a few years and it's in everyone's pocket. And desktop Linux sucks more than it ever did. Even MS wanted a piece of the Android pie, their piece just capitulated however.

  5. Microsoft Involvement by StormReaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. Frankly, I'm shocked that people stayed with Cyanogen, Inc. after Microsoft got involved. Once Microsoft puts money into your company, it's time to start looking for a new job while you still have one.

    Microsoft has always been the kiss of death, and it still surprises me when people don't see the writing on the wall.

    1. Re:Microsoft Involvement by c · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. Frankly, I'm shocked that people stayed with Cyanogen, Inc. after Microsoft got involved.

      Before they got involved with Microsoft, they'd already screwed over OnePlus, their first and highest profile CyanogenOS customer. OnePlus immediately turned around and basically demonstrated that they didn't actually need Cyanogen to deliver a decent Android.

      That and the dipshit blathering about putting a bullet through Google's head probably did more damage than Microsoft did.

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