Samsung will launch Tizen smartphones in March, released just after MWC 2014.
The South Korean electronics company has been teasing a Tizen smartphone launch for quite some time. Since May 2012, in fact. In Jnauary last year, Samsung said it would release “competitive” Tizen devices in 2013, then again said a high-end Tizen model would launch in August or September.
However, we still haven’t seen a Samsung Tizen smartphone yet, but the latest rumours is that one will launch sometime around MWC 2014 in February.
Sources close to the company revealed there will be a Tizan smartphone announcement in time for MWC 2014, with a release scheduled in for as early as March.
Apparently, there will also be a Tizen app store announcement from Samsung, which will be ready for when the device launches in the spring.
It has already been confirmed that Tizen devices will launch on February 23, the day before MWC. Now you can expect the Samsung hardware to be shown off there too.
We’re a little sceptical about the validity of the information, but Samsung is supposedly trying to launch a new OS platform to compete with the market monopolising Android and iOS.
With Android and iOS controlling over 90 per cent of the smartphone market globalling, it would be interesting to see if a platform like Tizen could begin to chip away at that majority.
According to IDC data, Android has an 81 per cent share of the global smartphone market, and iOS accounts for another 12.9 per cent.
Tizen is a Linux-based open source operating system that is not constrained by a manufacturer like Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone. Developers can easily create apps that run on Tizen.
If Samsung was to adopt Tizen for its smarphone range, it would control both the hardware and software on the handset, an advantage that currently only its rival Apple has.
Other companies worldwide are also trying to release Tizen handsets. These include Intel, Fujitsu, Huawei, while carriers supporting Tizen including NTT Domoco, Vodafone and Orange.
Read more: Samsung is hurting Android
Via: Mainichi
