SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Google's biggest competitor in the smartphone arena isn't Apple's iOS, which commands less than 15% of the global market. Google's certified OHA version of Android still leads with 65%, but Open Source versions of Android are at 20% and growing faster than any other mobile OS.
Now, according the The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is joining other parties to invest around $70 million in the celebrated Open Source Android vendor Cyanogen. Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen’s chief executive said in an interview last week “We’re going to take Android away from Google”, and it appears that Microsoft is determined to help with the separation.
Why Microsoft would choose to invest in Android is unclear, but they have little to lose in the mobile phone market, with WP8.1 less than 2% of the market and falling last year.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/29/microsoft-to-invest-in-rogue-android-startup-cyanogen/
Ars Technica also has coverage.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday January 30 2015, @04:36PM
Google has long since stopped doing neat, interesting, and useful things with new tech.
For me, at least, any good will they might have acquired has long-since been extinguished in a steaming pile of unnecessary Plus integration, needlessly killed tech experiments, and an almost ceaseless invasion of ads into spaces I don't want them.
To worry that one major corporation is going to take an open source platform from another major corporation is the kind of cheer-leading I think no one here much likes.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Friday January 30 2015, @05:38PM
I disagree. With driverless cars, Glass, and a pile of others, they are one of the few that actually *are* doing interesting things. IBM is another. Have you seen how much these companies spend on R&D?
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Friday January 30 2015, @06:15PM
Google perhaps, but IBM's budget on R & D is questionable, especially after this:
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/01/26/1446243 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Friday January 30 2015, @08:49PM
IBM seems to be one of the few doing research on new storage tech, faster chips, replacements for silicon, etc ... the real physics and hardware stuff. I realize neither of these companies is being altruistic; they're looking for the next big thing. With Google at least though, they do seem to be trying to solve some of humanity's big problems though, and make a profit doing it. They're one of the few companies that seems to be smart enough to look beyond the next quarter though.