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After Xiaomi, OnePlus gets a ban in India following Micromax plea

Yash GargDecember 17, 2014

It hasn’t even been a week since Xiaomi was ordered to stop selling, importing and marketing its devices in India. Although Xiaomi are finally starting to work things out, it turns out other Chinese biggie — OnePlus — now faces the wrath of a ban.

While Xiaomi was banned following a lawsuit from Ericsson, it is domestic Indian maker Micromax which turned out to be a problem for OnePlus. A plea from Micromax, citing its exclusive deal with CyanogenMod, means that OnePlus will no long be able to import CyanogenMod powered/branded One phones in India.

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We reached out to OnePlus for an official statement, and here’s what the company had to say: “In accordance with a judgement passed by the Delhi High Court, we will no longer be producing the OnePlus One with CyanogenMod to be sold in India. We are still fully committed to serving our users in the region and, in light of this decision, are working to find a solution that will allow us to continue operations as soon as possible. We regret the inconvenience this causes to OnePlus fans in India who have patiently waited for the opportunity to purchase the One.”

READ: Confirmed – OnePlus One in India won’t get CyanogenMod updates

It is pretty clear now that Micromax isn’t going to let OnePlus any margin in its home country. Micromax’s Yu sub-brand is all set to start its operations in India, and with CyanogenMod pre-installed, the Yu phone will be a prime OnePlus One competitor. The OnePlus One was previously launched in India a couple weeks back, resulting in quite a good response.

What do you think about the entire fiasco? Who is to blame according to you: OnePlus, Micromax or CyanogenMod?

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About the author

Yash Garg
Yash is a blogger by profession, builder of things by passion and foodie by birth. You'll usually find him talking about technology, music, travel and the game of cricket on the streets of Pune when not busy writing or speeding his way through the country! Read more on retro handheld gaming on RETRO91
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Adam Irvine
December 17, 2014
I still think Cyanogen were the idiots here… I mean, Micromax are being quite harsh about it, but that’s just business I guess, CM are the ones that fooked up underneath it all…
- December 17, 2014
  +1 for that Irvine. What exactly is Cyanogen actually thinking? I know they are trying to make more business but I don’t think what they did is right. Now 1+ is suffering it. I’ll also blame Micromax in part too because of the way they are going about these things. Getting the Indian high court to ban all their competitors. C’mon competition is good for business. If they think they have what it takes, then they should just compete with others and not get them banned just because India is their home country.
  Maybe the Chinese too should ban Micromax from ever stepping foot into China.
  - Faux-News
    December 17, 2014
    Micromax is paying Cyanogen to get exclusive rights. Nothing wrong in going to court over that.
Ajit Shah
December 17, 2014
CM and 1+ are to be blamed, did it not occur to them that there would be an exclusivity clause in the agreement with micromax? I mean, are they stupid dimwits to not realise that or they just went ahead without a due diligence

realjjj
December 17, 2014
How lame CM has become, what it used to be and what it is now. Exclusivity deals should have been against their core values but they got none of those anymore.
Xalis
December 17, 2014
I wish CM to crash and burn, they deserve nothing better.
Rob
December 17, 2014
I think this and what has happened with Xiaomi is a wake up call for Chinese manufacturers. They are going to quickly discover that outside of China, you can’t do what you want and get away with it. In their home country they can use other peoples technology/designs and no one seems to be able to touch them, step outside of China and these companies have the full weight of the law behind them and are able to ban others products, the Apple/Samsung saga is a very good case in point here. I think in the coming months we are going to see a lot more of this sort of thing happening, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
- Adam Irvine
  December 17, 2014
  I know, I think it’s a very sad state of affairs though, because at the end of the day it sh1ts on the consumer from great height with regards to the pricing of devices where the manufacturer has paid their way through court and in turn paid for all the appropriate patent licenses… That cost tends to get passed on…
  A lot of the existing patents for mobile technology should be standards now anyway as they appear in most if not all devices but then I guess that’s another conversation…
  - Rob
    December 17, 2014
    And higher prices for consumers because we have to also pay for any compensation the courts decide manufacturers must pay to each other. We, the end users lose out twice. Most of the technology in a modern smart phone is critical to its use and as such I don’t think individual companies should be allowed to hold another to ransom with essential tech that is needed for any phone to operate efficiently. Rant over!!
    - Adam Irvine
      December 17, 2014
poison
December 17, 2014
I think OPO staff has shown their limits while negociating with cyanogen from the bigining, things like this shouldn t happen to a serious company

techaddict
December 17, 2014
I guess CM sign with Micromax because they can give more sales(at least in India) ..i mean more volume more sales means more money to the software provider..which Oneplus cant do with their silly Invite system.overall i guess Micromax stole it in smart way while Oneplus was busy inventing new more complex procedures to buy a phone..
Lazar Prodanovic
December 17, 2014
Long ago all who cared about open source left CM as they become INC & that’s rough around half of developers. Those who left did brought & they work with them so we got some of the apps on Google play. That’s the main reason why they (CM) needed so much time even to deliver for OnePlus 1. That what they did deliver whose even slower than color OS. Their is a very good comprehensive review on Toms Hardware for all interested in. I am personally a type of guy who is for functional minimalism and I prefer AOSP, telling this because of fun boy’s who like CM. Personally I loved late CM7(7.3.3) back in gingerbread days and I think all later versions are not on pair with its quality.
Question whose who is to blame? Well all of them! CM because they are only mercenaries this day’s & because they quality is pore because they can’t really pay real kernel developers that are Linux enthusiasts & open source protagonists & other app developers with same beliefs that left them. Micromax that is not price competitive with Chinese firms so it goes with dirty monopolistic policy so it can sell to a stupid fun boys. OnePlus destroying open CM for nothing.
What (European) costumers really want is a nice build quality with a decent hardware with a lo price. & hire comes most important part: customers long lasting care & support concerning both hardware warranty of two years (as most contracts are on that period) with local per country service and kernel including modules (WiFi, GPS…) up to date (3.10 based) sources possibly in a git form so that decent normal kernel (very hard to find) developers can do they work bringing optimizations & futures from mainline Linux (something Android is far behind). First Chinese (or Indian) manufacturer who do all of this can expect some benefits & from community work & from sail of their products. Only ones that for now have community is HTC thanks to it’s popularity & world wide sails (I consider them as a rip off), Huawei (& ZTE) had some (including me) but totally lost it & will never again have traction