Qualcomm, the leading semiconductor and chipset manufacturing company has tied up with Cyanogen, one of the most popular custom OS & ROM maker of Android phones. Cyanogen’s custom Android OS will work on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 200, 400 & 600 series processors. In an effort to include features and user interface enhancements, Cyanogen will be a part in Qualcomm Reference Design Program (QRD). This was announced in the recently held Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, Spain. During the event, Cyanogen also released their new branding.
If you are unaware, Cyanogen is a open source custom OS for smartphone and tablets based on the official releases of Android. The aim of Cyanogen is to provide the experience of stock Android to the users so that they can not only explore the original thing but also to avail several additional benefits that a normal AOSP Android can’t offer. Cyanogen is restricted to a limited user base though users are very much satisfied of the performance of this operating system. Cyanogen rose the popularity charts after OnePlus One became the first company to release Cyanogen based Smartphones.
Currently, Cyanogenmod comes pre-loaded on 2 smartphones – Micromax Yu Yureka (in India) & One plus One phones. Now with the collaboration with Qualcomm, Cyanogen is aiming to reach more people than before and they are confident of delivering a great UI experience to all Android lovers.
Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen Inc. is delighted to collaborate with a company like Qualcomm. He is optimistic about success in the QRD program, which in turn will allow Android smartphones with Qualcomm processors to get a new software experience. Even Jason Bremner, SVP of Qualcomm Technologies attributed that “hard effort and long standing regular innovations that Cyanogen performed over the years has been the the key to collaborate with a chipset giant like Qualcomm.”
Qualcomm Objective
Qualcomm is planning to come up with low cost smartphones for the masses through their QRD program and that is why its collaboration with Cyanogen is important as they can provide some cool UI features.
Cyanogen plans to come up with a new launcher for Qualcomm and will revamp its existing website to include the new brand identity along with associated logo. Qualcomm can expand its user base by the introduction of Cyanogen along with existing snapdragon and is expected to sweep away all its competitors. Earlier, Qualcomm used only AOSP stream Android with some minimum software enhancements. Now after collaborating with Cyanogen, the OS will be more of stock Android built with necessary customization and tweaking from Cyanogen.
Cyanogen’s Gain
Cyanogen, till now, has appealed mostly to technical people all over the world due to their extensive (and sometimes complex) customization features on the stock Android, but the company has not been able to penetrate the masses.
In this context, collaborating with the leading chipset manufacturer Qualcomm, and being available on low-cost smartphones, they can now enter the mass market.
