Cyanogen reportedly lays off staff as it shifts focus to apps

[Jos]

Cyanogen is often referred to as the most popular custom ROM for Android but the company hasn’t had much success in convincing phone makers to use its version of Android over Google’s version. Now it looks like some major changes are on the horizon.

According to Android Police the company is letting go about 20% of its workforce, most of them are people who work on the open source side at Cyanogen. Systems and QA teams have seen big cuts too, and Cyanogen's offices in Lisbon and India may be closed off altogether. Community support members were allegedly removed, too.

The move is reportedly part of a corporate restructuring and a change of focus for the business. It’s unclear at this point exactly what that means but one source told Android Police that it involves a “pivot to apps”. Whatever that might entail, with most of the team working on the ROM now gone it seems that the custom operating system may be in trouble.

Cyanogen had secured some important deals in the past year, entering into a strategic partnership with Microsoft to have some of their apps and services natively integrated into Cyanogen OS. The company raised $185 million in 4 rounds and its highest-profile products include a phone from India’s Micromax and the original OnePlus One.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/65697-cyanogen-reportedly-lays-off-staff-shifts-focus-apps.html

 

[p51d007]

Kind of hard to run "a company" that produces an OS that 99% of the time people never have heard of or tried. It's a "niche" OS, for people trying to get away from a locked down bloated carrier/manufacturer phone.

 

[Zenodroid]

Hopefully only android apps, and not ios apps. so we can keep the android apps stable and smooth.

 

[Levi Sterling]

Looks like it's time to find a new OS to swap to

 

[mosu]

Cyanogen was doomed when they were acquired by Microsoft as a launch platform from Android to Windows phone and now is going down with it.

 

[wastedkill]

Hopefully only android apps, and not ios apps. so we can keep the android apps stable and smooth.

Can I get the stuff your smokin? Along with that tinfoil hat.

 

[trparky]

Kind of hard to run "a company" that produces an OS that the majority of people can't load onto their device because their carrier has locked down their device like Fort Knox. More and more devices are coming with locked bootloaders and no way to get root, especially in the United States where the carriers control everything (worst of them all being Verizon).