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Kirt McMaster, the CEO of Android software modding firm Cyanogen, has slammed Samsung as destined for failure.
Speaking in an interview with Business Insider, the hacker boss likened the South Korean company to Nokia. He suggested that it would struggle to maintain any semblance of market dominance over the next five years.
“The tier one OEMs like Samsung are going to be the next generation Nokias in the next five years,” explained McMaster. “They’re going to be slaughtered.”
“This is often the case. Look what happened to Research In Motion. Look what happened to Nokia,” he continued.
“Last summer Micromax surpassed Samsung as the dominant feature phone player in India. We’re talking literally in eight months this occurred.”
He then went on to cite Latin America’s Blu Products and the Philippines’ Cherry Mobile as rising stars.
“These guys are hustlers; they’re fast moving,” McMaster praised. “They know what it takes to influence market dynamics.”
“All of these guys are arising. They understand local marketing and distribution better than any incumbent that attempts to move into the region.”
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Cyanogen is behind the world’s most popular forked Android ROM - CyanogenMod - and has just undergone a corporate-style rebranding.
The firm also yesterday announced a new partnership with Qualcomm that would see Cyanogen put its software on the chip-makers reference design handsets.
Those reference design handsets are the very same that major OEMs base their own devices on, so it’s a big coup for the once lowly modder collective.