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Micromax was one of the first home-grown companies to get into the smartphone race. Cut to now, the company is already one of the largest players in the business and also has a sub-brand called as Yu Televentures. But this is not news; the news is that the company is now looking to pump in $400 million in Indian start ups. 
 
While talking to PTI, Micromax co-founder <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Rahul-Sharma" target="_blank">Rahul Sharma</a>, said "Going ahead, we will invest in not less than 20 start-ups, where we see synergies. We are looking at building an ecosystem of connected devices and offer customised experience to users”. 
 
The very first company that has benefitted from this move is Bangalore-based start-up HealthifyMe, which is an app in fitness space and also offers a wearable. If the chances of Micromax making a wearable product has been just a rumor till now then things are sure to speed up with this latest development. 
 
Without divulging on the investment details, Micromax has categorically stated its intentions to look beyond mobile and smartphones in the coming years. This development falls in line with promise made by Micromax co-founder, Rahul Sharma who talked up the prospect of funding startups which will enable the brand to differentiate from what it has been doing all these years. 
 
 Democratising has been part of Micromax’s strategy since the start of 2015. While they have been present in the television space for a while now, they recently announced themselves in the PC+ segment with first-ever Micromax branded 2-in-1 Windows device. 
 
By investing its energy and efforts into HealthifyMe, Micromax could be angling at the wearable segment in a discreet way and now that people are getting to know all about a fitness gear, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to have Micromax making wearable debut in the coming months. 
 
Either that, or Micromax will utilize HealtifyMe’s prowess to develop software ecosystem that will be provided on future Canvas devices. Whatever be the case, it will be interesting to see if Micromax vies for some heated action against the likes of Xiaomi Mi Band.

Micromax turns messiah for startups, eyeing 20 companies to
pump $400 million

Cyanogen made its much anticipated debut in India with Micromax in 2014 and prior to that we saw them featuring with OnePlus as well. And from there on the company has been rumbled in royal mess between both the aforementioned brands. 
 
Micromax made the business move by signing exclusive rights for CyanogenMod (CM) in India that primarily <a href="http://www.in.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/OnePlus-to-create-its-own-build-for-India-after-Cyanogenjoins-Micromax/articleshow/45311131.cms">enforced OnePlus to work on the software front</a>. After lot of confusion, <a href="http://www.in.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/Cyanogen-finally-decides-to-cut-support-for-OnePlus-One-inIndia/articleshow/45430323.cms">Cyanogen went public with the statement that announced the exclusivity of CM to Yu devices</a> in India. 
 Ever since the Micromax-Cyanogen deal was announced, everyone including us saw the arrangement a monetary move for Cyanogen which hugely benefitted Micromax. But now <keyword id="2436577" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Steve-Kondik">Steve Kondik</keyword>, co-founder, Cyanogen has spoken about the saga, thereby giving Cyanogen’s side to the story. According to him, Cyanogen licensed the CM builds to OnePlus and Micromax free of cost. 
 
Now this statement adds another twist to the ongoing controversy, wherein most of us thought that Cyanogen ends up raking in more moolah out of its partnership with Micromax. So, now we surely deny those allegations after hearing it from horse’s mouth itself. 
 
In addition to the Micromax deal, Kondik has also mentioned their continued affiliation with OnePlus and that <a href="http://www.in.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/A-stable-Lollipop-build-for-the-OnePlus-One-arrives-next-month/articleshow/45913664.cms">CM custom build on Android 5.0 Lollipop will be rolled out for global</a> devices next month. 
 
The fact that Cyanogen is making no money from either Micromax or OnePlus makes for an interesting read and their venture-funded nature still acts up as a means to survive in today’s competitive mobile ecosystem. 
 
The story folded up making Cyanogen the villain and with Kondik’s public confession, things seem to have been made more generous on their part and also cutting them slack for all the confusion. 
 
Image: talkandroid.com 
 
<a href="http://www.androidcentral.com/steve-kondik-india-micromax-and-oneplus">Source</a>

Cyanogen
Claims To Have Given Free License to Both Micromax and OnePlus

Mukesh Ambani has announced the launch of a Rs 4000 smartphone for the Indian market this year during <keyword id="10926" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Reliance">Reliance</keyword>’s AGM this morning. However, will it be able to give a tough competition to the others who are already in the race? 
 
 1. <keyword id="71696" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Micromax">Micromax</keyword> Yu Yureka: After going through a roller coaster ride in 2014, Micromax is back in the race with its new smartphone which is exclusively available at Amazon. This 5.5 inch smartphone is the way to go for those looking for a powerful Android phablet. It is the only handset to be optimised with the powerful Snapdragon 615 chip. It offers OnePlus One like Cyanogen experience for less than half the price. With 16 GB internal storage, it is a budget phone for everyone. Other features include 13 megapixel camera resolution, 4G LTE support, Wi-Fi, 4.0 GPS and 2500 mAh battery. Gaming is taken care of by the Adreno 405 GPU and 2 GB RAM. 
 
Micromax tied up with Amazon to start the initiative to deliver in the remote villages of India and it is efficient too. This is an add-on which all the more places it in the top spot. 
 
 
 
 
 2. <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> <keyword id="820770" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Lumia">Lumia</keyword> 535: If you are a diehard fan of Windows phone, the first smartphone launched with Microsoft brand is your final destination. The best thing about Windows OS is it has uniform experience throughout all platform and available devices. The Lumia 535 runs on Windows Blue 8.1. Microsoft has enhanced display with features such as Sunlight Readability, high Brightness Mode, Brightness Control, Scratch Resistant Glass and Sunlight Readability. Having just Snapdragon 200 chipset with four core and clock speed of 1.2 GHz would not be a big deal as Windows OS is designed to work with low hardware resources. Unlike other Lumia devices under Rs. 9000 range, it is optimised with 1 GB RAM, which makes it a personal favourite. 
 
 
 
 
 3. <keyword id="139648" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="ASUS">Asus</keyword> Zenfone 5 (16 GB): Windows phone is not your cup of tea? Popular laptop-maker, Asus gives you the best bet with Zenfone 5. Packed in a crisp 5” IPS screen, this budget phone offers zippy performance with a 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Atom Z2460 chipset. Plus 2 GB RAM and PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU ensure good gaming experience. It is ahead in the race than the others in this category with its 8 megapixel camera resolution. Other features include 16 GB internal storage, microSD card slot, Wi-Fi, 3G, A-GPS and 2100mAh battery. Unlike Motorola and Nokia, the Taiwanese manufacturer Asus has been generous enough to offer a 2 megapixel front-facing camera as well. Though it comes at a market price of more than Rs. 9000, but now and then unbelievable discounts in the e-commerce forums makes it an immediate grab. 
 
 
 
 
 4. <keyword id="2206516" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Moto-E">Moto E</keyword> 2nd Gen: Moto E 2nd Gen is a successor to one of the most successful smartphones- Moto E Gen 1. The 4.5” smartphone is a winner with battery capacity of 2390 mAh which is more than enough for watching videos and surfing internet for long hours. The smartphone which runs on Android Lollipop 5.0 has 8GB expandable memory. Other features include 1 GB RAM and Snapdragon 200 Quad-Core processor. What makes it a tough competitor is that users who deal with innumerable heavy apps have all given it a thumbs-up for it is a successful replacement to those who can’t afford an iPhone. 
 
 
 
 
 5. <keyword id="13722" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Lenovo">Lenovo</keyword> A7000: With Dolby Atmos audio, a world’s first in smartphones, a huge 5.5” HD screen and multimedia enabled processor, A7000 is built to entertain. A successor of Lenovo A6000, which became one of the most rated smartphone within days of its launch, comes with Android Lollipop, 1.5 GHz Octa Core processor and 2 GB RAM. Other features include 8 GB expandable memory, 8 megapixel primary and 5 megapixel front camera resolution, 3G and 4G and 2900 mAH battery capacity. It is one of the cheapest 4 G performance smartphone one can buy in India. 
 
 
 
 
(image credits: shopap.lenovo.com, windowscentral.com, engadget.com, androidcentral.com, Business Insider India)

5 smartphones that will give Mukesh Ambani’s Rs 4000-phone a run for its money

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Cyanogen Inc." title_caption="Kirt McMaster" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f48c0d69bedd543be84a68-960/kirt%20mcmaster.png"></a><a href="https://cyngn.com/about">Cyanogen Inc.</a>Kirt McMaster</div></div>Today, the mobile industry is essentially a two-horse race between Apple and Samsung.Kirt McMaster, the CEO of Cyanogen Inc., doesn't think things will stay that way for much longer, however. There's a big shift happening, according to McMaster, and it could leave companies like Samsung "slaughtered." Cyanogen Inc. makes a forked version of Android known as CyanogenMod. It essentially lets you add new features and themes to your Android phone without compromising any performance.CyanogenMod is incredibly popular among the hacker community, and it comes preloaded on the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oneplus-one-invites-2014-6">OnePlus One</a>, which proved to be an extremely popular phone in 2014. Cyanogen's current software is a bit niche - if you were to ask the everyday Android or iPhone user, they probably would have never heard of CyanogenMod. But the company is looking to change that soon, and in 2015 there's a chance you'll see CyanogenMod appear on dozens of smartphones overseas.Cyanogen is now partnering with Qualcomm, a company that makes processors for almost every smartphone you'll find in any corner of the world, to appear on phones using its turnkey solution in emerging markets. A turnkey solution is essentially a package deal: Instead of just giving the manufacturer permission to use its chips, Qualcomm will provide the software, too.This means Cyanogen will likely be able to reach a much broader audience than it does today. At the same time, this also means it should be much easier for manufacturers to build high-quality, fast-performing phones at a cheap price since they no longer have to hire software developers. McMaster thinks the rise of these cheap smartphones over the next few years could make it much harder for companies like Samsung and Apple to hold their spots at the top. He also thinks there's a lot of room for another, more open operating system to compete with Apple's iOS and Google's Android.We chatted with McMaster to learn about Cyanogen's plans. Here's what we had to say.(Note: The following is a transcript of our conversation with McMaster that has been edited for length and clarity).Business Insider: So tell me more about why you guys are working with Qualcomm. You said this means your software will be on a lot more phones around the world.Kirt McMaster: The disruption in smartphones and the marketing associated with that [coming] from Samsung and other tier one OEMS has really been played out. In other words, the battle between moving from a 3- to 4-inch screen to a 5-inch screen, that's done. Everybody has a phone with a 5-inch screen. And you can now get a phone with a 5-inch screen that's sub-$140, etc. The first disruption was moving from feature phones to smartphones, the second was app stores, and then form factors. We've seen Samsung and the Android ecosystem win on the form factor front to get great global distribution. Apple has caught up to form factor now with the iPhone 6 Plus with a large screen etc. The next major disruption is going to occur around the commoditization of hardware.Over the course of the next 3-5 years, it will impact every market on the planet. It's mostly being felt now in emerging markets. The reason it's being impacted there is because of the turnkey model. It allows these local OEMs to arise out of nothing.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="AP" title_caption="Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f48d0d69bedd643ce84a68-960/xiaomi-ceo-lei-jun-9.jpg"></a>APXiaomi CEO Lei Jun</div></div></div>On the global platform, we see Xiaomi becoming the No. 3 OEM. Micromax is now No. 10. These guys are basically creating really cheap handsets that have really awesome performance. This is made possible because of Qualcomm's turnkey solution as well as Mediatek's.One of the things Cyanogen does really well is optimizations at the low level, at the kernel level. Which means we can get performance out of these chipsets coming out of turnkey that make the device for all intents and purposes feel like a $600 iPhone.The tier one OEMs like Samsung are going to be the next generation Nokias in the next five years. They're going to be slaughtered. We think long term Apple itself will have problems because they're just not good at competing at the low end.BI: So you think Samsung will be toast in five years?KM: It could get pretty bad pretty damn quick. This is often the case. Look what happened to Research In Motion (RIM). Look what happened to Nokia. Last summer Micromax surpassed Samsung as the dominant feature phone player in India. We're talking literally in eight months this occurred. This is just one market. We see this happen all over the world. We see these local kings, [such as] Blu Products in Latin America [and] Cherry Mobile in the Philippines. All of these guys are arising. They understand local marketing and distribution better than any incumbent that attempts to move into the region. These guys are hustlers; they're fast moving. They know what it takes to influence market dynamics.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="AP" title_caption="Samsung's new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f48c6469bedd553be84a68-960/samsung-galaxy-s-6-and-galaxy-s-6-ege-2.jpg"></a>APSamsung's new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge</div></div></div>BI: In the past you said to <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/29/microsoft-to-invest-in-rogue-android-startup-cyanogen/?mod=ST1">The Wall Street Journal</a> that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cyanogen-taking-over-android-2015-1">you wanted to take Android away from Google</a>. Can you explain that?KM: It's not so much about taking Android away from Google. Android is now at a billion and a half or more users globally. It's going to go to well over more than five billion. In a market of that scale, keep in mind the growth in Android over the next five years is the widest, fastest, largest computing platform growth in the history of the known universe. So we have never experienced this kind of growth in a single computing platform that we will see over the next five years.What does that mean? It means that in a market of well over five billion users, a handful of derivatives, not a billion, but maybe two or three derivatives of Android can work and have significant user bases [with] a couple of hundred million users. Xiaomi is going to be successful. There's no doubt we're going to be succesful and have a couple of hundred million users. Google will probably have a couple of billion users.But if you're an operating system and you have a half a billion users or more, you can build a very unique interesting business. To be honest though, we think it's the open platform that's going to win. It's this notion of an open computing platform that's going to capture the hearts and minds and where the innovation is going to occur.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Google" title_caption="Google presenting the newest version of Android at Google I/O in 2014." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f4a9b369bedd457fe84a6b-960/google-io--dave-material-5.png"></a>GoogleGoogle presenting the newest version of Android at Google I/O in 2014.</div></div></div>BI: Android is open source, but you don't think it's open enough. Why not? KM: We're building a platform to open up Android so that we can open up services from third parties into the platform. Today Android and iOS are shells for [Google's and Apple's] services and everything else can be an application. [With] our model, Facebook doesn't have to build a Facebook phone. Amazon doesn't have to build an Amazon phone to get that level of integration in Cyanogen. We can make all of these things possible. As an example, today if you use Google Now and say "Play X song," what happens is that song is indexed, Google searches and comes back and gives you a song in Google Play Music. And if you click that link, that query obviously favors Google's own services. In no way does the core natural language engine of Android, iOS, or Windows Phone know that Spotify may be the only way I interact with music. We can give Spotify that deep level of integration at the kernel level. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Cyanogen Inc." title_caption="Theme packs available in CyanogenMod" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f4969769beddef54e84a68-960/cyanogen.png"></a><a href="https://cyngn.com/cyanogen-os/customization">Cyanogen Inc.</a>Theme packs available in CyanogenMod</div></div></div>BI: Let's talk about Microsoft for a minute. The Wall Street Journal reported the company might be making a big $70 million investment in you guys.KM: I'm not announcing who our strategic partners are, not yet. We will be making some announcements about our C round in the next few weeks. From an investment standpoint, we as a company are not interested in taking money from any strategic partner unless there's actually a deal in place that we're working with some of these companies. You can only imagine that there's a lot of interest in the world today to create a version of Android that's more open. And that allows for other parties to have some greater control of what is the largest computing platform ever.We're talking to a lot of different people. And during the course of these conversations, some of these people have liked what we're doing and have expressed interest in possibly participating in future rounds of financing. Whether or not that happens now or later I can't talk about it. There's a number of significant parties that are interested in the company.BI: So with this platform you're building, is your ultimate goal to compete with Android?KM: Yes and no. We love Google services. I use Google services. We expect our users to continue to use Google services. What we're saying is on our platform, let's open it up. Let the user have a choice. Choose whether they want to use Google Maps or Nokia Here. Give them all the same system level access. We love Google services, we like the guys at Google and we hope to continue working with them going forward. We think that with Android at five billion plus users, Google has a huge opportunity. We think that we'll have a couple hundred million users, and Google should support us as well. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s-6-video-review-2015-3">Why Samsung's most gorgeous Galaxy phones yet will leave you with mixed feelings</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1mOWVuczqdRI33Zta3T6ZO5uKj250pdv" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

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Micromax turns messiah for startups, eyeing 20 companies to pump $400 million

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Cyanogen Claims To Have Given Free License to Both Micromax and OnePlus

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5 smartphones that will give Mukesh Ambani’s Rs 4000-phone a run for its money

Usha Rani Das

Samsung will get 'slaughtered' in 5 years, says the CEO behind one of the biggest Android software companies

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