Microsoft reportedly to invest in CyanogenMod Android team

[HEXUS]

"We're going to take Android away from Google," asserts Cyanogen chief.

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[shaithis]

Dual-boot Surfaces? An end to Windows Mobile?

Wondering what else Microsoft hope to get for their $70m....

[Brian224]

Wondering what else Microsoft hope to get for their $70m....

A bigger market share for Bing (maybe even Cortana) on Android and the resultant advertising revenue?

[Biscuit]

A bigger market share for Bing (maybe even Cortana) on Android and the resultant advertising revenue?

I would be surprised if that amounted to much of a return given:

Google supplies its Android OS to device makers for free as long as they feature the Google app suite and set Google Search as the default search provider

Given this fact, I wonder what the deal is with Amazon seeing as they go to lengths to block the Play Store.

[crossy]

Dual-boot Surfaces? An end to Windows Mobile? Wondering what else Microsoft hope to get for their $70m....

Personally I think there's little chance of Microsoft allowing Android dual-boot on their hardware, and ZERO chance of them dropping Windows Phone in favour of Android.

I'm pretty sure that this is a partly-cynical move by Microsoft to support an Android competitor. However, I think that Cyanogen being able to do a successful OS sans Google is pretty remote - all the folks that I know running Cyanogen put on GApps as the first step. And a mobile OS with an alternative app store is not appealing - after all if someone as large as Amazon can't make it work successfully then some two-bit operation like Cyanogen isn't going to be able to either.

[Google supplies its Android OS to device makers for free as long as they feature the Google app suite and set Google Search as the default search provider ]Given this fact, I wonder what the deal is with Amazon seeing as they go to lengths to block the Play Store.

My understanding was that Amazon just got a copy of the publically-available Android sources and used that as the basis of that "FireOS" of theirs. Still think it was a pretty moronic idea and they would have been a lot better to have got "proper" Android and tried to do a good reciprocal deal with Google.

[DanceswithUnix]

Wondering what else Microsoft hope to get for their $70m....

The investment round is $70M, Microsoft are just one investor and it looks like they aren't saying how big a slice they have taken.

[DemonHighwayman]

If MS are now involved I think i'll be staying away from CM from now on. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if GCHQ advised them to buy a large stake in CM just so they have another level of surveillance.

[Satyapal]

CyanogenMod Team should be good as MS is investing in it

[LSG501]

You know what..... I wouldn't mind a 'stock' android experience without google (except play store obviously) where we could utilise MS's services instead.

When I look at my usage scenario I don't really use gmail, I use hotmail for syncing my calendar/contacts, I use ms office for office work, I use onedrive more than any other cloud storage (still not much) and windows as my os. I only really use google for music storage (free remote backup mainly as I use my nas for this).

I've already 'disabled' google calendar on my phone, I never use gmail on the phone and I intend to try and use ms for contact sync when I update to lollipop instead of extra desktop software to sync gmail/outlook.

Not to mention I won't add my work email to my phone purely due to concerns over how much info google can scan.... google now is now working with select third party software.

[TRUTHnTRINITY]

Microsoft being Microsoft lol

[BlueScream]

Can't help but think that this isn't good news.

[KeyboardDemon]

I think this is a clever move on Microsoft's part.

What I think is that they are not trying to make a version of Android that will run on what are normally Windows devices, but they are trying to support Android users with devices that are no longer being supported through updates to the OS, either because companies like Samsung are concentrating on their latest line up or the hardware has fallen behind the minimum specs baseline. CyanogenMod would usually come to the rescue of these devices and bring them up to date so users can access the latest apps and services, but now it would most likely come with Bing as the default search engine, Outlook as the new e-mail client and a splash screen with the message to say this mod was brought to you by Microsoft on show at every opportunity. The underlying message being that Microsoft can or will do a better job of supporting Android devices than Google.

[Saracen]

Can't help but think that this isn't good news.

It is, and it isn't.

MS being "involved" with CM isn't, BUT .... anything that provides a serious attempt at deGooglifying Android can only be good.


Hey, I think I just invented a word.

[peterb]

It is, and it isn't.

MS being "involved" with CM isn't, BUT .... anything that provides a serious attempt at deGooglifying Android can only be good.


Hey, I think I just invented a word.

Degooglified, meaning to remove a pain in the Googlies or removal of the Googlies?

[Saracen]

The removal of Google (second g is important) from my life.

[ZaO]

Ugh... I was thinking about trying Cyanogen Mod out on a phone someday. But there's just no damn way now... Starting to feel like the only way is to learn to code your own programs these days lol...