Translation
Liquidation to follow in a few months
Cyanogen parts ways with its founder
Mobile OS outfit Cyanogen has made further sackings and parted ways with founder Steve Kondik. A post by CEO Lior Tal says the company is closing its Seattle office and consolidating a single Palo Alto abode. “The purpose of the change is to improve the communication and performance of the team which will now operate under …
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Monday 5th December 2016 11:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The curse of M$ investment?
No, the curse of inept business partners.
Interesting link, but I would doubt the words "inept". From the email:
With plenty of cash in the bank, the new guys tore the place down and will go and do whatever they are going to do. It's probably for the best and I wish them luck, but what I was trying to do, is over.
The clue is in "plenty of money in the bank". The people that were taking over were not interested in product or anything long term: they were looking to cash in. As soon as money appears in something that you have developed, be careful to retain absolute control or it WILL go sideways - I've seen it too.
Of course, it didn't help that we made the mistake of using HSBC as bank. Never again.
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Monday 5th December 2016 08:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The curse of M$ investment?
Yes, Windows Phone really sunk Cyanogen. Maybe it was just a very little percentage of "nerds" looked for a Cyanogen phone? And some of them were even driven away because as soon as they see something alike "M$" they freak out? While mobe makers were in the uncomfortable position of "displeasing" Google if they looked for alternatives?
Android now is in the same position Windows was - you may not like it, but most people will use it anyway, because it comes pre-installed on most devices, and because almost all of your friends use it. And Google is very interested in sinking any competition.
Thereby, look at Mountain View, not Redmond....
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Monday 5th December 2016 12:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The curse of M$ investment?
I can confirm your first paragraph. I certainly did.
At least you can mostly de-Google an Android phone. The same data slurp cannot be removed from windows. Hoping Microsoft grows up on the slurping and GUI and decide to reverses their bad decisions of late.
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Monday 5th December 2016 12:39 GMT John Brown (no body)
Considering that "teleworking" and video chat was supposed to be the holy grail of cutting cost, improving productivity and working conditions, it;s interesting how many IT companies are consolidating sites. It might be more to do with site/building running costs, but "letting people go" because a site closed rather than working from home sounds like it's as much about reducing headcount as anything else.
The problem is that reducing headcount by closing a site many miles from the remaining sites means you lose most or all of the people from the closed site, no matter who they are or how good they are,
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Monday 5th December 2016 18:13 GMT The_Idiot
Hmmm...
"A post by CEO Lior Tal says the company is closing its Seattle office and consolidating a single Palo Alto abode... Folks who work in Seattle will be offered the chance to make the move south."
https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/
As of October 2016, average apartment rent within the city of of Seattle, WA is $2133.
As of October 2016, average apartment rent within the city of of Palo Alto, CA is $3224
So they're giving those staff 'offered the chance' generous pay rises too, huh? Huh?
Ah. Riiight...
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Monday 5th December 2016 23:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
I was under the impression Kondik left a long time back to focus on being hired by samsung in 2011 for lots o money... Did that not last long or did he come back...?
It did feel like 2011-2012 onwards things slowed down a lot and the number of officially supported devices left a fair few still capable devices behind (unless someone compiled and baked in the required drivers).
I hope they do continue, they introduced a fair few android features that eventually became part of android, many custom roms still use it as a base, so i hope they stick around.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
