Finally it's happening, One Plus and CyanogenMod have ended their relationship which was initially a fruitful one with the huge success of OnePlus One. However, everything came to a head after the Chinese smartphone manufacturer got embroiled in a bitter legal trouble with Micromax, another Cyanogen client based mainly in India.
A direct implication of this sudden change in business landscape is that the flagship product OnePlus Two which is expected to launch this June may no longer be donning the powerful Cyanogen OS but rather would be run by the much-ballyhooed Oxygen OS, the Android-based mobile operating system developed and built with its own custom ROM by OnePlus for OnePlus One.
Both companies decided to end their business relationship. However, CyanogenMod made it clear that it will still be providing needed support for OnePlus One smart phones currently running their OS.
Not too long ago, Cyanogen inked an exclusive deal with smartphone maker MicroMax for a series of markets, India chief among them. However, as OnePlus was about to expand its market in India, a New Delhi High Court stopped its smartphones from shipping into the over-a-billion-people-strong developing market.
Micromax claims its exclusive rights were infringed by OnePlus, notes Medianama.
Eventually, all the pulling and pushing affected the supposedly beneficial relationship between OnePlus and CyanogenMod.
The bone of contention lies in the area of operation for two Cyanogen clients. It started when Micromax was given by Cyanogen exclusive license for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar regions and OnePlus handed a global non-exclusive license for the mobile OS.
This explains why Micromax is virtually unknown in the US and European markets unlike OnePlus.
Moving forward, Cyanogen reveals it will soon be partnering with new Chinese vendors to make its customized Android OS build for OEMs available to more clients, widening its existing 50-million user base in the process.
Speaking at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing, Cyanogen co-founder Kirt McMaster divulges that their OS would be very helpful for many of the 100 smartphone vendors in China who were in fact bigger than OnePlus but were struggling as an international brand, according to Ecumenical News.
"OnePlus shipped reasonable volume, but nothing compared to what some of these other partners can ship," McMaster detailed. No particular company was named, however.
OnePlus Two is set to be invite only and will coming out with the following killer features:
- 5.5-inch screens,
- sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor,
- a 4GB RAM,
- a better resolution
- a generous 3300mAh battery,
Plus of course, the Oxygen OS which would be of zero bloat as reported earlier. Set to launch by Q2 or Q3, OnePlus Two may be introduced as early as June.
For sure, it may not be the most gorgeous phone in the market today but feature for feature and given the company's knack for razor-thin margins, most certainly OnePlus Two is tough to beat.
Join the Conversation