Chinese Smartphone manufacturer, One Plus and open source operating system, Cyanogen have officially parted ways.
OnePlus was founded in December 2013 by former Oppo vice president Pete Lau. It is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China. Cyanogen on the other hand is an open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets computers based on the Android mobile platform. It is developed as free and open source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added original and third-party code. It is based on a rolling release development model.
OnePlus had been Cyanogen’s first major hardware partner, with Cyanogen providing the Android ROM on the popular OnePlus One handset. However, Cyanogen is seeking a new relationship with other handset makers to take it to the next level.
Things began to go sour when Cyanogen signed a deal with Indian smartphone maker Micromax that prevented OnePlus from shipping its phones to India with Cyanogen OS installed.
Last month, on the heels of the EU’s announcement that it would investigate Google’s use of Android, Cyanogen signed a deal with Microsoft that gives it access to Office, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Bing.
The pair seemed like a natural fit and Cyanogen guaranteed OnePlus One owners two full years of support. The deal helped OnePlus launch in 17 markets, as it had the appeal of a popular OS that didn’t require flashing to install, while Cyanogen illustrated its commercial ambitions could work.
I think this is a good take-off for Cyanogen and probably a bad deal for Oneplus. Let’s hope Oneplus integrates itself with other known operating systems for survival.
