Cyanogen partners with Microsoft to bundle and create native integrations of Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Office on Cyanogen OS
Microsoft will bundle its apps on Cyanogen's Android OS — Rumors of a Microsoft and Cyanogen partnership have been making the rounds recently …
Context & Ripple Effects
This deal lands a month into Microsoft's aggressive Android distribution push: Samsung shipped Microsoft apps preinstalled on the new Galaxy S6, and days later Microsoft signed Dell, Pegatron, and eight regional OEMs to preinstall Office and Skype. Cyanogen is a different kind of partner — an Android fork rather than a hardware maker — so the integration runs deeper than preinstallation.
The follow-up reporting confirms that depth: the deal includes removable apps and 'contextual' suggestions, meaning Cyanogen's OS layer itself surfaces Microsoft services rather than just carrying them. By September the partnership had escalated again, with Microsoft's assistant being woven directly into Cyanogen OS.
First-order effects
- Cyanogen gets a differentiated OS offering against stock Android, while Microsoft gains a distribution channel for Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Office that bypasses Google's own bundled defaults.
Second-order effects
- Other Android OEMs face pressure to strike similar bundling deals — Samsung already has one, and Dell/Pegatron-style preinstall agreements become table stakes for any manufacturer courting Microsoft's enterprise customers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — from Samsung to commodity OEMs to a full Android fork — Microsoft's mobile strategy is settled as services-everywhere rather than platform-ownership, with app placement on Android substituting for Windows Phone share.
The trend: Microsoft is converting its lost mobile platform position into paid-for distribution of its productivity and services stack across every viable Android channel.