CyanogenMod's founder on 'being stuck in the middle' of the Micromax-OnePlus fight

CyanogenMod’s founder Steve Kondik has spoken to Android Central on the whole Micromax vs OnePlus saga and said that currently the company is “stuck in the middle of a fight between OnePlus and Micromax because they are supplying the OS to both companies.” Before the launch of the Yu Yureka smartphone (a new venture by Micromax which will focus on CyanogenModi-OS based smartphones), the company had gone to court to get OnePlus One's smartphones banned in India (the latter had then newly launched in India via Amazon.in) The court documents at the time had revealed what looked like a bitter fight between OnePlus founder Carl Pei and CyanogenMod CEO Kirk McMaster. One of the emails revealed had Kirk replying, “We will be terminating our relationship with OnePlus. I will get back to you with more details shortly.” He wrote in a later email, “We will halt support for OnePlus devices immediately…..I am also requesting that OnePlus stop using the Cyanogen brand in any marketing collateral or communication in India.” Now Kodnik has come out and said that “the email was from the tail end of a much larger conversation and wasn’t nearly as abrupt as it appeared,” according to the Android Central report. He also told the website that while OnePlus is a startup just like them, it’s not likely that the “long-term visions” of the two companies will converge. He went on to confirm that OnePlus would get Lollipop update this month though he cautioned, “I have no idea what the future holds beyond that.” As far as the Micromax and OnePlus fight is concerned, he said CyanogenMod signed “a short exclusivity” term in each agreement. “Our agreement with Micromax was a little more specific for the services we were providing, but it was never meant to be retroactive against OnePlus, and that’s where the problem came from,” he added. He also said that the fight was because both brands were trying to build a market image around the brand and the OS. As far OnePlus is concerned, the ban was later removed in India. As we had reported at the time , the court had then removed the ban and setting a new date for the hearing. The judgement at the time at noted that while Micromax’s divide was sold at Rs 8999, OnePlus was at around Rs 22,000 and thus “the consumer of one product is a mid-segment consumer and the consumer of the other product is a high-end consumer and thus prima-facie neither competes nor eats into the territory of the other.” OnePlus had also submitted to the court that its version of CyanogenMod was different from Micromax. While CyanogenMod’s founder is now stating that the company is stuck in the middle of a fight between Micromax and OnePlus, the confusion over the ’exclusive agreements’ is still a relevant issue. There’s also the fact that the OnePlus brand is linked with the CyanogenMod OS as well. It remains to be seen what decision the courts will take in India, but for now CyanogenMod’s responses on the whole controversy aren’t too clear.