Rumors of a Microsoft and Cyanogen partnership have been making the rounds recently, and the Android mod maker is confirming them today. In an email to The Verge, Cyanogen says it’s partnering with Microsoft to integrate the software giant’s consumer apps and services into the Cyanogen OS. Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office will all be bundled later this year. As part of the partnership, Microsoft has committed to creating “native integrations” on Cyanogen OS.
“Taking Android away from Google” to give it to Microsoft. Will these people never learn?
Cyanogen just signed its own death warrant with this. I knew Cyanogen would be going down the drain the moment they started courting venture capitalists.
Google can laugh and say “thank you”, because it kneecaps the EU antitrust case against Android!
The investigation is looking at its actions between 2006 and 2012, so this wont (in theory) wont affect the ruling.
Well, Android has been open source from the beginning, so everybody could modify Android and do anything they wanted with it. Honestly, I think the EU investigation is utter crap. The OEMs have always had the choice to use alternative apps in Android, they just chose not to.
they are investigating if that is actually true
There is nothing to “investigate”. It’s crystal clear for all to see! Whenever there’s money to be made, however, the EU and their hordes of socialist freeloaders are quick to rub their hands together to extort as much money from a U.S.-based company as they can. No surprises there.
Does it depress them, that Google makes a lot of the best apps in their respective categories? I believe it does. Gmail (e-mail), Maps (mapping), Chrome (browser) etc. are all the best in the business, which is why anybody with at least 2 neurons or more won’t remove them from their bundle. I say these apps earned their damn seat inside Android anyways.
Edited 2015-04-17 04:27 UTC
Maps is not as good as it used to be. I seldom use it anymore. Locus Pro (on foot or bicycle) + Nokia Here or Tomtom for navigation are far better.
Gmail and Chrome are great indeed.
There is a lot to investigate. As a free market lover, you should know that in a free market, nor the consumer, nor the seller can actually force the market, which is against any profit searching entreprise’s desire. This is also the reason why it is in a companies’ interest to gain a dominant position, enabling it to dictate its own rules on to the market (and users).
One of the few duties of any government is to make sure that a company does not try to use a dominant position in one market (which it gained by having the better solution for that market), to force itself upon other markets.
Maps and search are good, gmail (the app) is ok (but there are way better alternatives) and the application play store just has the content, those are to me the only interesting google apps on android (of course, can’t have any of the above without also having play films, hangouts, play games, play kiosk, google+, foto’s, play books, play music (or whatever there service is called this week,…). They should at least leave the option to completely uninstall any and all google apps and or OEM apps as desired, because what to me is a great app, to you might seem bad. Users’ choice you know, as in free market. It is after all a smart and adaptable operating system, which allows you to enhance the experience by installing and uninstalling desired applications. I see no reason why these apps need to be forced upon users (I have the same gripes with all the apple apps as well btw, I had a special folder called: apple crap, to put all apple stuff that I didn’t use in.
And no, the ability to uninstall an app does not limit Google or another company to create new API’s and enabling them to users. Dependency resolution is a problem that’s been solved in Linux for ages. If an app needs certain libraries and API’s the application store can install the necessary libraries when needed, and on demand, instead of having this monolithic bloc of application bundles…
As far as I can read, this is exactly what Cyanogenmod is trying to do. Giving the users the choice, you’re not forced to use the MS apps, but they happen to be the only ones available for now. Hopefully, other companies will jump on it.
For me:
Cloudmagic (IMAP) > Gmail
Firefox for Android > Chrome
Scout / Here Maps (for offline) + Foursquare (for places) are good alternatives that I use often when Maps fails me.
Otherwise, nice trolling.
The open antitrust case against google is about google search and google manipulating the search results in favour of their other offerings.
The EU has also been investigating Android licensing, but not because someone complained about the app bundling but MS and Nokia complained because google is 1. giving away the OS for free 2.puts licences under pressure not to use other mobile OS 3. and to bundle only their apps like youtube
All those antitrust investigations have a certain merit. And you could at least think about the antitrust implications of Google Play Services too, an Android without them is more and more crippled as to much apps need them.
And that’s a good thing, IMO. It keeps Android from becoming the same splintered mess that desktop Linux is. Personally? I like being able to get 99% of my apps from one source, and knowing that the latest version is always going to be there. vs. having 30 different flavors of Android, each with their own app store.
I couldn’t decide if I would stay with Cyanogen or switch to OxygenOS for my OnePlus One… until now.
Well, which one are you going with? Stop keeping us in suspense…
Edited 2015-04-16 14:11 UTC
More like Vulture Capitalists
While Nokia was Nokia they had already implemented a version of android which used their own and Microsoft services. They now have a use for it.
I don’t particularly see Microsoft as any more/less bad than Google.
One is as bad/good as the other.
The reality is there are VERY few options when it comes to replacing Google’s app stack. So if that was their aim, where else could they turn?
Yandex?
Baidu?
In the current political climate, I think these would struggle in the western markets…
Thats written like a business would look at the situation. Which is a useful perspective when running a business. But looking at it from a consumer perspective?
Doesn’t make sense. I don’t know of anyone that would prefer sending all their data to Microsoft instead of Google. Most people that don’t like sending their data to a huge company, don’t really care which one it is or how not evil they say they are.
Users aren’t crying out for a phone with MS apps prebundled. Creating one that does that, is a business looking for a market that doesn’t exist.
I would. Office365 is the best small business productivity platform I’ve ever used. Not for the price; anything more expensive is also a pain to configure. Google apps doesn’t come close.
Of course, SBS 2011 was better in terms of not having to pay through the nose every month. Microsoft is obviously moving to SaaS because otherwise people wouldn’t be upgrading.
On the consumer side, I can’t find anything better than onenote and skype for what they do. Data in the cloud is a real threat, but it’s a nebulous one. I’d never store personal photos in the cloud, but most people just don’t care.
I really haven’t had any experience with Microsoft’s apps where I’ve thought to myself “I’d rather be using x”. Generally if I want an alternative to a Microsoft program it means that Microsoft isn’t even on that market.
There’s no big push for Microsoft apps, but the new ones are good enough that people who end up with them don’t seek alternatives often.
The REAL question is “does Cyanogen need the anti-MS crowd”. If the answer is “no” then this is a good strategy for both parties.
edit:
I’m not counting things they’ve already discontinued, like Games for Windows and Windows RT. Or some of their new stuff like Yammer, I guess. Actually, now that I think of it there are a few things that Microsoft is doing that are completely forgettable and inferior. Their visual studio online software repositories. Delve. Project seems pretty pointless. Azure. Dynamics is okay but not great or worth the cost IMO. The Outlook BCM.
Anyway my point is that they’ve got a lot of top-tier apps for consumers. Maybe people aren’t pushing for microsoft solutions but when they present themselves people are taking them and they are working. It seems to be a pretty good decision for microsoft.
Edited 2015-04-17 01:02 UTC
Office 360 is popular where I work. It’s a good move for Microsoft and for Android OEMs.
I think you would agree that you’re reply is very business centric, while mine is focusing on end consumers.
I think that the outcome is obvious enough to make further discussion unproductive.
The answer would be to create it themselves, or at least create an API/ABI to replace Google’s API/ABI and sell that to companies.
There is a market for an alternative to the Google Play services, and that is the opportunity they are missing. The opportunity isn’t for a Android fork; the opportunity is to create an alternate mechanism for connecting the device to the greater ecosystem. Ironically, Blackberry’s BIS and BES served the same markets.
Neither do I. True, MS has a history of bad behaviour, where Google has kept relatively clean. But at this particular point in time, circumstances have forced Microsoft to clean up their act somewhat – their desktop monopoly doesn’t provide as much influence as it used to – whereas Google have definitely become a bit more exploitative in recent years.
Confirmed. The next Windows Phone will be Android based.
I guess I’ll start looking at MIUI for my alternate ROM needs.
Nexus stock for me, for the foreseeable future.
“As part of the partnership, Microsoft has committed to creating “nEGative integrations” on Cyanogen OS.”
This is very disappointing, the entire appeal of an aftermarket ROM, at least for myself, is that it does not bundle a bunch of vendor specific apps..
Does this necessarily mean that they are bundling MS stuff into CynogenMod proper? Could it not take the form of something like Google Gapps (i.e. a post install rom)? Is this an exclusive deal?
If they don’t f*ck up their base OS with this, and it doesn’t artificially tie CynogenMod to MS, whats the harm? Do we now hate on a company just for doing business with MS? Their money is just as green as everyone elses…
All Im saying is maybe we should wait and see what form this deal actually takes. Hating on them for trying to figure out ways to make money seems awfully cynical considering the amount of work they have done creating and supporting alternatives to licensed Android proper over the years.
Don’t get me wrong, Im skeptical too. But the general sentiment of the internet masses towards open source projects trying to take step towards making a buck is truly disturbing to me.
Its like a collective “Get back in the kitchen and cook my supper! Screw your whole trying to make a living crap, you should be content with my platitudes of praise. Why do you need to eat too?”
It’s just that the article specifically uses the words bundle and integrate with the Cyanogen OS. It doesn’t exactly paint the picture of an installer that a user might choose to put on their device.
I also don’t see how an optional package is worth MS investing money in a specific ROM, when they could just as easily make their app suite work on any android device.
Hopefully you are correct, but my take on this is, the investment money will be specifically for having it not be optional.
Edited 2015-04-16 15:43 UTC
Exactly, with Cyanogen OS, the stuff that’s on devices shipping with Cyan from the get-go. I absolutely agree, and expect, this not having any (or much) impact on what roles out in a cyanogenmod.org build.
If that’s the case, and there is a distinction as far as the integration goes, it would be great.
Edited 2015-04-16 18:27 UTC
Pretty much what I thought:
http://www.androidcentral.com/cyanogens-microsoft-deal-includes-rem…
TL;DR:
1. No changes to cynogen proper except for the addition of APIs to facilitate these new kinds of bundled apps (see 4).
2. The new APIs are not intended to be MS specific, may see other “bundled” apps from other parties in the future.
3. If you get cynogen from the community release you will never see the Microsoft Apps. They may or may not be available as an optional install – article wasn’t clear (may only be available on non-community builds).
4. Will include some form of contextual app suggestion system. MS Apps may not be pre-installed at all, rather they may simply be suggested if the system determines they would be helpful/useful to you (hopefully something you can turn off).
5. Regardless of how the apps get on your device (pre-installed?, OTA?), they can be uninstalled. Not disabled. Completely uninstalled.
But please everyone, continue with the knee jerking…
Edited 2015-04-16 22:29 UTC
While there are great open source options for local devices, the same is not really true for services. Where is the search, or cloud storage, or mapping system that’s truly open, not aligned with a corporation, and crowdsourced? Without those pieces, users are left to decide which evil empire is least evil, and this remains true whether apps are on the device or the services are accessed over the web.
As computing becomes increasingly services based, the challenge for open source proponents is to design and deploy viable services. Sometimes it surprises me that the FSF et al don’t see this as existential for the movement. Right now there’s a real risk that open source can win the battle and lose the war.
Oh they do. I am surprised that this is new to you 🙂
There are numerous statements and articles addressing this.
The FSF has even created strengthed licenses (e.g. AGPL) which address that a lot of these service providers use and modify Free Software but “hide” behind the fact that they are not distributing the modified version.
I was actually sort of interested when I started reading this sentence. Could this mean the FSF has finally realized that, if they want to provide any real alternative to closed commercial services, they need to actually commit to providing services themselves – and not just dumping a bunch of files on GitHub/SourceForge and calling it a day?
Hahahaha, nope. And what have they actually done to address the problem?
*Snort* Yeah, good luck with that. I do have to wonder how, exactly, they propose to discover and prove that “hidden” code violates the GPL. Maybe by breaking into the servers to steal the code – in other words, commit a criminal act to prove a civil offense (copyright violation), I’m sure that will work out just fine.
If the situation gets any worse, they might even (gasp!) schedule a meeting to appoint a committee to pool opinions & form a consensus on issuing a non-binding resolution!!!
The deal includes support for 4 and half months unless it makes M$ really really really rich, in which case the date of support becomes undefined.
Seriously, my guess is that Microsoft will drop this like a hot potato once they realize that it will only benefit their competitors.
Just for those talking about having to abandon CyanogenMOD because of this.
From cyanogenmod.org http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/microsoft-and-cm12-1-nightlies :
“For those looking for a good read on Cyanogen Inc’s announcement, head over to AndroidCentral.
To highlight the one take away that matters to CyanogenMod users – We are not bundling or pre-installing Microsoft (or any Cyanogen OS exclusive partner apps) into CyanogenMod”
Getting rid of Balmer and gates and their “windows on everything” business plan was a great move. Desktops are increasingly irrelevant and planning to put Microsoft “software on everything” is the only way they’d be able to survive the changes.
And of course, nobody really wants to upgrade from older versions because the software does everything they need; putting all their development weight towards SaaS solutions is a great business strategy for them.
And why things should surely go this way? Because you say so?
Seriously, if you still want to give this site some credibility, stop repeating the same stupid old monikers!!
They long stopped showing some adherence to reality, and they’re pointless anyway… Companies are all the same.