In a recent announcement by Cyanogen, they have officially disclosed that Microsoft services such as Bing, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook and Microsoft Office will come bundled on devices running Cyanogen OS starting later this year. This approach by the two companies is to provide true openness of a platform to the user.
“Microsoft will create native integrations on Cyanogen OS, enabling a powerful new class of experiences.”, according to the press release, “We aspire to have our tools within arm’s reach of everyone, to empower them in all aspects of their lives,” said Microsoft EVP Peggy Johnson.
To clarify, Cyanogen has mentioned in another blogpost that Microsoft services will not be pre-installed into Cyanogen Mod. It will be user’s own choice to decide which bundle they want to go with on Cyanogen OS.
Your nightlies will not see a sudden influx of Microsoft applications – you can put the pitchforks down. CyanogenMod has historically stayed neutral on your services of choice, whether you use Google, Amazon or Fdroid; we leave that decision to you and we have no intention of changing that.
How would you see this change in Cyanogen OS. Will you welcome this? Tell us in the comments below. You can read the full press release too.
PRESS RELEASE:
Cyanogen Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced a partnership to integrate popular Microsoft services across the Cyanogen Operating System. With offices in Palo Alto and Seattle, Cyanogen is a leading mobile operating system company that is evolving the Android platform to create a more open, level playing field for third-party developed apps and services.
Under the partnership, Cyanogen will integrate and distribute Microsoft’s consumer apps and services across core categories, including productivity, messaging, utilities, and cloud-based services. As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will create native integrations on Cyanogen OS, enabling a powerful new class of experiences.
“People around the world use Cyanogen’s operating system and popular Microsoft services to engage with what matters most to them on their mobile devices,” said Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen Inc. “This exciting partnership with Microsoft will enable us to bring new kinds of integrated services to mobile users in markets around the world.”
“We aspire to have our tools within arm’s reach of everyone, to empower them in all aspects of their lives. This partnership represents another important step towards that ambition,” said Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President of Microsoft Corp. “We’ll continue to deliver world-class experiences across productivity and communications on Windows, and we’re delighted that Cyanogen users will soon be able to take advantage of those same powerful services.”
The distribution arrangement includes a number of Microsoft services: Bing services, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office.
