Sphere 3D Corp. (ANY)

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Cyanogen wants to bypass Google. Microsoft invests.

Android was intended as an “open source” operating system that hardware makers can deploy in their devices for free. Yet Google has frustrated manufacturers in recent years by requiring them to feature Google apps and set Google search as the default for users, in exchange for access to the search engine, YouTube, or the millions of apps in its Play Store.

Such restrictions make it harder for apps that compete with Google’s to win distribution on Android devices. For Microsoft, that means less exposure for its Bing search engine, which is up against Google search. It also could limit growth of other Microsoft software products.

Cyanogen offers an alternate version of the Android mobile operating system free of such restrictions. The 80-person company claims to have a volunteer army of 9,000 software developers working on its own version of Android.

“We’re going to take Android away from Google,” said Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen’s chief executive, in a brief interview last week. The next day, at an industry event sponsored by tech news service The Information, McMaster said Cyanogen had raised $100 million to date. Previously the company had disclosed that it raised $30 million of funding. The company spokeswoman declined to make McMaster available for this story.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/29/microsoft-to-invest-in-rogue-android-startup-cyanogen/

yanogen wants to solve this problem by working with partners, and by supporting alternative app stores. In fact, Kirt McMaster said Cyanogen would have its own app store in 18 months.

http://www.androidauthority.com/cyanogen-google-kirt-mcmaster-582373/

The popular flagship phone killer "OnePlus One" is based on CyanogenMod.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/11/04/oneplus-one-sells-half-million/


Speculation comments from me: Glassware could potentially do the same for all apps on all desktop and mobile platforms. Creating a platform-agnostic app store: Android, iOS/OSX (from using the open source XNU kernel just like how CyanogenMod bypassed Android), Android, Windows, Linux, etc?