The folks at CyanogenMod have just made a very major announcement. No longer is the biggest open-source community project for Android just a hobby — it’s gone big time, and it’s gotten there fast. Introducing CyanogenMod Incorporated, a new full-fledged company that has managed to raise $7 million in funding to start. Wait… what?! This is definitely the ultimate feel-good story, with a project that started out as a hobby for a group of talented developers exploding into what has now become full-fledged careers for many.
So what does this mean? It means CyanogenMod is more than just a ROM. It’s a business. The company is 100% focused on the development of the ROM (which they’re actually calling an Operating System now). While we’re not sure what this will mean internally, it does help secure the future of a project that already had a pretty strong backbone.
In the heartwarming letter to fans, it is revealed that a man by the name of Kirt McMaster helped open the eyes of Steve Kondik to even greater possibilities. The question: what could they do with enough funding? And with a team that consists of as many original CyanogenMod developers as they could corral?
That answer will be given to us in due time, with the team promising some very exciting news for the future. It sounds like they are working on something big — something far beyond the scope of a traditional ROM that simply adds a few cool features. We’re potentially talking Xiaomi-type expansion here, folks, though we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. Here are the goals, though:
* Organize, lead, and support our community
* Create amazing user experience centered around how YOU work
* Security solutions that really work
* Stay committed to building the features our users need
* No junk
* Constant updates
* Available on everything, to everyone
That last one is really interesting. We’re not sure if they’ll be able to reach that goal, but knowing they’re working toward it is enough to get us excited.
With that, they’re also announcing the Cyanogen Installer, a project which will look to make the installation of CyanogenMod much, much easier for users. We’re sure there will still be some technical know-how required, but they’ll make it prettier and more easy to get up on the single biggest entity in third-party Android development.
This is pretty big news, and although the entire picture has yet to be painted we will be keeping a close eye on this proverbial easel. Be sure to read the full memoir by Steve Kondik over at the CyanogenMod website.
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