Cyanogen and CyanogenMod are dead: the reasons for the failure – International Business Times Italia

he Wanted to kill Android. Not only not succeeded, but now Cyanogen has decided to close all its services, including the operating system at the basis of devices like the OnePlus One. Out of reflex, one of the ROM’s most popular of the Android ecosystem will vanish, because of the lack of resources and of the server on which to host the "nightly": CyanogenMod.

"As part of a consolidation of Cyanogen in the act, all the services and build the nightly supported by Cyanogen will no longer be supported after 31 December. The open-source project and the source code will remain available for anyone who wanted to develop CyanogenMod personally-in-law a very short blog post that announces the decision of the company.

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for his part, however, the team of CyanogenMod has defined the reorganisation, "a mortal blow" to the mod Android, especially appreciated because it is one of the few to offer a full experience and stable. A team member explained that the reasons are manifold:

1. Considered the co-founder of Cyanogen, and the main proponent of the mod, Steve Kondik, is no longer a part of Cyanogen since last November, nothing prohibits a more the company to sell its products to a third party. In this case, continue to use the name "Cyanogen" you may lead, in the future, a legal controversy;
2. "Cyanogen" is a trademark that, because of some of the choices of Cyanogen Inc, including the "case of OnePlus", is now often seen in a negative key. "The stain of some of the PR actions of Cyanogen is difficult to remove from CyanogenMod";
3. With the reset of the services and products of Cyanogen, is less important financial and logistical support to the development of "nightly".

that Said, the team will not abandon completely the commitment to the community of fans. You will start from scratch with LineageOS that will be the continuation of CyanogenMod: "The fact that a company turns off the support of an open-source project does not mean that it must die". The project will again be led by Kondik.

the END OF THE DREAM OF BEATING GOLIATH

for its part, instead, Cyanogen pays the had decided to leave OnePlus for an exclusive agreement with the indian company Micromax. OnePlus today it remains a name to call, that to "put a bullet in the head of Google", as proclaimed the ex-ceo Kirt McMaster, was more than necessary. It also has burned in a short time over $ 100 million of venture capital investments. Even more, pay is probably too ambitious a target: replace Android.

The goal of Cyanogen was to establish itself as a replacement platform of Android for the major hardware manufacturers. CYANOGEN

To break away from Google, Cyanogen had sought support in another technology giant: Microsoft. The two companies had reached an agreement of collaboration, which included the Office package and the assistant, Cortana, in the Cyanogen OS. Previously, it was also talked about an investment by Microsoft, indiscretion, later denied by the facts.

A dream, moreover, is impossible: Cyanogen and CyanogenMod are two services that rely on the work of Google on Android, in particular on the version of AOSP (Android Open Source Project), freely usable, but no Play Store. Add to that, the difficulty to generate profits from a business of this type (Cyanogen OS was free of charge), having “burned” about $ 100 million of investment and we have sufficiently understood the reasons for the failure of his ambitious project.

now, then, Cyanogen will change the approach: instead of fighting the Android, will develop the "pieces" for the operating system of the Big G. The name of the initiative is to Cyanogen Modular OS."The new program offers manufacturers of smartphones with a larger freedom and the opportunity to market smartphone customizable and intelligent using various parts of Cyanogen OS via dynamic modules and MOD, with the ROM of your choice, that is stock Android or a variant of it," explained the company in October.

A dismemberment which, however, had already begun some months before, with some internal problems between the two co-founders. As Kondik publicly acknowledged that “CyanogenMod will not go anywhere”, last July the 20% of the work force had been dismissed, leaving the understanding of a business situation that is anything but positive. In addition, on, and disagreements with the other co-founder, the same McMaster, had brought, in the medium term, the removal just Kondik at the beginning of December. “My co-founder is apparently not happy to manage the business and do not have the guidance of the company,” explained Kondik on a private group on Google+. This situation had led to the affirmations, powerful and clumsy, like trying to “put a bullet in the head of Google”. Statements that, according to Kondik, were targeted to destroy it from within Cyanogen.

Cyanogen OS will be so dismembered, and its various elements will be offered to smartphone manufacturers, if they wish to integrate in your own Android ROM. In the meantime, it seems that Cyanogen had a certain in a hurry to forget the past because the forum of CyanogenMod, the wiki, and the link to the download have already been removed prior to the announced date of December 31,.

Here, then, is an archive of the post Cyanogen says goodbye to the project. Here’s another archive of the wiki CyanogenMod. Here, however, an archive of the build.

updated Article to highlight the internal problems at Cyanogen Inc. in the past few months