Microsoft will invest $70 million in Android maker Cyanogen

Microsoft has made a $70 million equity investment in Cyanogen, producer of an alternative distribution of Android, according to a Wall Street Journal article published Thursday.

Cyanogen is the principal backer of the popular, open source CyanogenMod distribution of the Android operating system, which is used in the OnePlus One smartphone. The company also makes Cyanogen OS, a commercial Android distribution found in smartphones built in India by Micromax, including new models selling under the brand name YU.

The Journal cited unnamed sources familiar with the transaction. It did not provide comment from either Microsoft or Cyanogen. Cyanogen did not respond to IDG News Service's request for comment by press time, and Microsoft declined to comment.

CyanogenMod reportedly exceeded 1 million active users worldwide at the start of 2012, and by the end of the following year claimed 10 million. It's not market share that makes the company or its open source contributors compelling, but rather Cyanogen's bold effort to enable smartphone manufacturers to deploy Android without having to rely upon Google-branded resources such as Google Play.

IDC analyst Al Hilwa believes that Cyanogen's talent could certainly help improve Windows Phone down the road. But that's no guarantee of Windows Phone's future success.

Hilwa doesn't think Microsoft should be interested in acquiring the CyanogenMod or Cyanogen OS platform for itself. "If developers have to do extra work for another platform, including a significant amount of testing, they still would tend to hesitate to support low market-share platforms. It does, however, reflect a newer thinking at Microsoft, in terms of letting the different products go after their markets more independently," said Hilwa.

It would be surprising to see the latter situation take place considering Cyanogen is said to have turned down an offer from Google that would have valuated themselves at $1 billion, though the company’s newly-revealed motive might explain why they made that tough decision. One thing’s for sure, though: if Cyanogen made a big enough case to get a major player like Microsoft interested then they certainly must have a strong plan in place to make this happen.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/29/microsoft-to-invest-in-rogue-android-startup-cyanogen/
http://phandroid.com/2015/01/29/microsoft-cyanogen-investment/
http://www.geek.com/android/microsoft-to-invest-in-android-software-maker-cyanogen-inc-1614644/
Author: Vishesh Tyagi, handelot.com