Three years ago the developers of Cyanogen formed their own corporation to focus on their own operating system and license it out to other phone manufactures. They signed a deal with OnePlus to have their OS on all of their smartphones, but that deal fell through. They also got an influx for cash from Microsoft to preload all of their office apps. The phones that employ the dedicated OS are a bunch of no-name phones out of India. Needless to say business is not very good and Cyanogen has just trimmed 20% of their workforce and promised further layoffs were coming very soon.
The future of the company, according to one of the report’s sources, is “apps.” This could mean the company’s “Mod” platform, which is little more than a generic app store, or it could mean trying to monetize some of the apps that ship with CyanogenMod or Cyanogen OS. Across both of its OSes, Cyanogen Inc. has a custom Theme Store, Gallery, Dialer, Music player, Email app, and account system with remote wipe capabilities.
The future of Cyanogen’s monetization strategy is in serious doubt. The company needs money and app development is something that can make work. So far, the company is remaining silent and not granting any interviews.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
