While it’s been obvious for the last few years that Android and iOS have created a two-horse race in the world of smartphone OSs, is it possible that a third could emerge?
Microsoft, especially with its recent deal to acquire Nokia’s mobile hardware business, has tried.
But perhaps that third horse is going to be an Android variant.
The team running Cyanogen, Inc. has been behind one of the most popular Android ROMs in the world — Cyanogen Mod. They’ve just raised $7 million in funding raised by Benchmark Capital to turn what has been a hobby project into a real business pioneering a direct-to-consumer route for delivering a mobile OS.
Consumers frustrated with the standard flavor of Android can flash their devices and replace their software experience with Cyanogen Mod, which boasts additional security and personalization features along with better speed.
They have had roughly 8 million users who have gone through the relatively painful process of doing this without any expensive marketing campaigns.
With the funding, they’re building an installer that’s going to make this process dead simple.
“This is something that I kind of started for fun when the first generation of Android devices came out,” said Steve Kondik, who worked on Cyanogen Mod while serving as a staff software engineer at Samsung. “But it just took off and snowballed. And soon people started giving me advice about features that they wanted. We just solved a lot of painful technical problems to do this.”
Beyond those 8 million direct users, other Android variants like Xiaomi’s MiUI leverage Cyanogen Mod so the real reach of the project is perhaps several times larger.
Kondik believes that Cyanogen Mod could be a ‘mobile OS by the users, for the users.’
With the new funding round, which was actually closed a few months ago, Kondik left his job at Samsung and partnered with Boost co-founder Kirt McMaster. They now have a team of 17 working on the project.
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