Cyanogen to Cut Jobs as Part of Major Revamp, May Pivot to Apps: Reports

Cyanogen Inc., the company that once wanted to take Android away from Google, is said to be falling apart. Multiple reports suggest that the company is undergoing a major revamp and cutting jobs.

According to a report by Android Police, the company is conducting layoff where it is asking roughly 30 out of the 136 people to leave - that's about 20 percent of entire workforce. The report says that the layoffs are being conducted by Steve Kondik, the Co-Founder and CTO of Cyanogen. The biggest impact of the layoffs has been on the team behind the Cyanogen OS commercial distribution, and not those involved with the CyanogenMod project.

The report adds, "The systems and QA teams in Palo Alto and Seattle have been heavily cut, with Cyanogen's smaller offices in Lisbon and India reportedly being essentially gutted." Notably, the community driven Cyanogen has also not spared community support members as they were allegedly also removed. There are rumours that Cyanogen is looking to revamp its services and once of the sources hinted that the company may be involved in a "pivot to apps." As of now, there is no word how the company will move to the new strategy but we can expect hear more from Cyanogen soon.

Re/code in a separate report points out that Cyanogen will be working on the new strategy under the supervision of former Facebook employee Lior Tal, who has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer. The report adds that several top executives have also moved out from the company in last few weeks.

The sudden layoffs hint that Cyanogen despite having an eventful 2015 where the company announced rebranding alongside raising $80 million (approximately Rs. 497 crores) in funding has not been able to show results. The company also managed to strike a deal to get Microsoft's apps preloaded on Cyanogen OS-based devices.