Cyanogen Inc. has been laying off a huge percentage of its staff that is working on the open-source arm of Cyanogen as the company is reportedly shifting its focus to just apps.
Android users should know that Cyanogen Inc. is different from the guys that are making the custom CyanogenMod ROMS on the XDA forums. The startup did begin from the custom ROMs and has now since evolved to a company who wishes to sell their OS to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of Android smartphones as the preloaded ROM instead of the vanilla stock.
About 20 percent of the Cyanogen Inc. workforce has been reportedly laid off as of this writing, Android Police has learned. There are even reports claiming that CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik himself is conducting the layoffs in the company.
It is unclear how the layoffs will affect the CyanogenMod community but some users are confident that it will still continue to grow considering that they are still separate from the company itself. However, others have said that it was not long before Cyanogen Inc. was going to fall because there were no big Android phone manufacturers who are now supporting their Cyanogen OS for their smartphones.
One possible reason for the layoffs is because there were really no large clients that Cyanogen Inc. managed to snag especially not after their deal with OnePlus for the Android OnePlus One phone went south, Ars Technica reported. Even their partnership with Microsoft for their bundled apps in the Cyanogen OS did not manage to save their failing business.
The layoffs also seem to be pretty brutal as the employees that were going to be let go were the only ones who were told to show up to work. Once there, they were pushed to meetings with human resources who reportedly laid them off without advanced warnings.
Cyanogen Inc. is now shifting their focus to apps instead of their Cyanogen OS. The change in the strategy is being led by the company's new COO Lior Tal but the company refused to comment on why the layoffs happened and how they will proceed with their new plans.