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Cyanogen Inc 'axes 20%' staff

Cyanogen Inc, which develops an alternative flavour of Google's Android, has reportedly laid off a bunch of staff.

The Seattle-based US startup takes code from the open-source CyanogenMod project, adds in some proprietary features, and tries to get phone makers to ship the package with their handsets. Basically, it seems, that hasn't gone according to plan.

On Friday, Cyanogen Inc axed about 30 of its 136 staffers, or 20 per cent, according to Android Police:

Layoffs reportedly came after a long executive retreat for the company's leaders, and were conducted with no advanced notice. Employees who were not let go were told not to show up to work today. Those who did show up were the unlucky ones: they had generic human resources meetings rather ominously added to their calendars last night. So, everyone who arrived at Cyanogen Inc in Seattle this morning did so to lose their job (aside from those conducting the layoffs).

Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster tweeted on Saturday:

The biz did not comment further when contacted by El Reg. It's understood the three-year-old upstart will take a new direction under new COO Lior Tal that will focus on apps rather than providing a full-fat operating system. The axed engineers were working on the OS side of the software, we're told.

CyanogenMod was created by Steve Kondik, who is Cyanogen Inc's founder and CTO. ®

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