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In a most perplexing move, Microsoft to invest in aftermarket Android-based OS creator Cyanogen

Microsoft to participate in a $70 million investment round into Cyanogen, a company that creates a custom, feature- and performance-rich version of Android.

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Cyanogen: a company that creates an after-market mobile OS based on Google's Android. Image source: Cyanogen
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Microsoft--a company we all know well for their multi-platform Windows operating system--is investing in Cyanogen, a company that builds a specialized, high-performance version of the popular Android OS. The very same Android that is Google’s. Think about that for a second--it is perplexing on many levels: Microsoft, while pushing their own Windows-based smartphones is likely to be investing in a company that uses their biggest competitor’s operating system.

Cyanogen is a company that uses the official Android source code as a starting point to create a feature- and performance-enhanced version of the operating system called Cyanogenmod, which can be manually installed on several popular Android phones to deliver added functionality. In recent months they have even tied up directly with phone manufacturers to have their version of Android factory installed on specific models phones: most famously, the OnePlus One and Micromax’s Yu Yureka phone.

According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will purportedly participate in a $70 million investment round into Cyanogen. This follows an announcement that Cyanogen’s CEO Kirt McMaster made last week in San Francisco where he stated that the company’s goal was to “take Android away from Google.”

Google’s stock Android comes with restrictions in the form of mandating the use of Google’s own Play Store along with its core apps, and using Google as the default search engine. Such restrictions do not exist in Cyanogenmod.

Microsoft has always had a fractious, while ironic, relationship with Google in which they allegedly earn more from Android patent licensing fees than they do from their own Windows Phone. Also, after their purchase of Nokia they even sold Android-based handsets for a short while.

 
Microsoft’s Windows phone has 3 percent of overall market share, while Cyanogenmod pegs their user base at 5 percent (or 50 million) of active Android users, which places them at 4 percent of overall market share.
 
The endgame for Cyanogen appears to be aimed at convincing their users to utilize their own version of an app marketplace, as opposed to Google’s own Play Store. But this is bound to take more than a fair amount of convincing, given the traction and spread of offerings on the Play Store.

 

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