Microsoft Invests 70 million in Cyanogen; What Should We Expect?

Last week, the CEO of Cyanogen boasted loudly that they’ll attempt taking Android from Google and let’s face it, there were a lot of us who laughed at his declaration. Kirt McMaster’s exactly words were: “We’re going to take Android away from Google.” With this, we more likely would have expected a move from Google or at least to respond to McMaster’s statement. But what we didn’t exactly expected was that Microsoft and Cyanogen to become allies. Microsoft officially invested 70 million dollars in Cyanogen and though this investment only makes Microsoft a minority investor without much power over Cyanogen, this can only mean they both have a strategy and that strategy somehow, involves Android.

And why wouldn’t they feel ambitious with this new alliance? Especially when Microsoft invested a lot of millions of dollars, time and efforts into Windows phones only for all of that to have almost to none results. And their success was rather insignificant on the smartphone’s market. Being a third party in the smartphone’s world which is dominated by Android and iOS has been proved to be more like a black hole that absorbed their investments. After they even bought the Finnish manufacturer Nokia and implemented their software into these phones, it was thought that Windows Phones were an innovative move, by having one of the most smart phone platform in the world. But apparently, the consumers thought differently.

With the apparition of Android, that caused an uproar in the world, they realized what they really needed from a smartphone. And Android gave them all the simplicity, the fun and the personalization they needed. Microsoft on the other hand, with their unchanged platform that seemed rather annoying than smart, to mature and old for the present times, and by far user friendly, seemed to sip into darkness and was left behind by the consumers. Windows Phone’s future looks rather dark from this point and the only thing they can do to save Nokia is to take control over one of the most popular OS’s and implement that OS into their smartphones.

Of course, Microsoft could have admitted defeat a long time ago and they could have chosen to adopt the Android OS, but without holding back, I would say their pride kept them from doing so. But their desire to assert themselves and put their mark on the smartphone’s market, it more dragged them down. Still, Microsoft remains a huge Company, with a reputation that is hard to forget or defeat. After all, Microsoft changed the world and it will continue doing so, with subtle steps and by making its way through those who holds it down. And it wouldn’t surprise me if they do just that with this new collaboration.

Cyanogen, unlike Microsoft is a rather new Company, with big dreams and aspirations. And one of those aspirations is to diminish Google’s control over Android. You wonder why? Honestly it’s hard to tell what their real reasons are, but it’s obviously that Google has monopolized the market and it’s everywhere around us. So why wouldn’t they try to take from Google something that makes quit the difference in their portfolio? Android OS is going to become more efficient and performant than it is at the present time, which means more and more people are going to use it. And Cyanogen thinks it can make it better than it is.

And before you think this might be almost impossible to achieve, you might as well want to think again. There are many companies out there which were waiting for someone brave as Cyanogen to appear and create a barrier to stop Google’s growing market power. And who could say Kirt McMaster wasn’t brave enough with his statement? Cyanogen might be young and still a child compared to Google, but the power of many can accomplish a lot. And I say many because apparently, Cyanogen is not only drawing Microsoft by its side, but others investors too. All of them being interested in taking Google’s power over Android and not only, down.

With this investments and with the partnerships Cyanogen attract by its side, we expect this Company to grow more powerful and successful, but it would be hard to defeat Google on this market since its roots are much deeper than Cyanogen’s.

Besides taking the step to join forces with Microsoft, Cyanogen also announced that in the next 18 months they will have their own application store.

However, this partnership between Cyanogen and Microsoft doesn’t necessarily means that Nokia is going to start using an alternative version of Android. This might as well just be an investment that marks the beginning of a new era, or at least the beginning of a battle. Who would win and who will lose, it remains to be seen. And if Cyanogen is going to succeed in their ambitions, it would mean we would have a restriction free Android, since it’s well known the fact that Google frustrated manufacturers with its requirements of featured apps and by setting Google search and other services as default applications. Not only that through this Google is winning more power, but it also makes it impossible for others to succeed on such a market.

This said, I can only think that it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Cyanogen to take over Android. After all, their own version of Android is cleaner, better, it updates more often and gives you more power over your own device. They also have a fan base that shares their vision over the Android OS and more than 50 million people already use their version of Android. So it would be interesting to see what they can do for the OS and how they can improve it, if they have total control over it. And besides, with its volunteer army of over 9000 software developers this sounds like a promise. What Cyanogen does is to promise an Android OS free of Google’s tyranny, and what actually drove Microsoft and Cyanogen to become allies, were Google’s policies that require to pre-install Google’s applications on all OEM’s that are using Android.

While we don’t exactly know where all of these will lead, we do know Cyanogen has a better chance of creating and developing a third ecosystem for smartphones, unlike Microsoft. And this would supposedly mean Google would have another rival to compete with.

What do you think of this alliance, between Cyanogen and Microsoft? Do you think they can win against Google? Or is it possible for Cyanogen to face destruction?

Let us know in the comment section bellow.

Source: androidauthority.com