New Mobile OS Platform 'Tizen' Looks to Challenge the Top Dogs

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Leaked Tizen OS on Samsung Device
The two undisputed players in the mobile operating system (OS) industry have been iOS and Android in recent memory. Android in fact is beginning to quash the market share of iOS and is slowly building dominance, with projections for the next couple of years showing its mobile OS market share will continue to be over 70 percent. With this obvious fight for dominance at the top, there is another battle waging for the third spot in the market and a new contender emerging. 

Currently there is a scrap between the likes of Blackberry OS (RIM), Windows, and Bada (Samsung). Windows particularly is in a strong position to claim this third spot within the next three years, especially with its acquisition of Nokia. Furthermore its great ambitions for capturing future market share, as the smartphone growth continues globally, is also shown through company plans to reach a 15% share of the market by 2018. In order to build their increasing share of the mobile OS, Microsoft may need to target emerging markets such as India and China in order.


The future for Blackberry OS on the other hand appears more bleak. The poor reception of the Blackberry Z10, sliding share prices, and surging competition in global markets such as Latin America means that the market share for this OS will most likely fade to under 2 percent within the next couple of years. Further recent job cuts and possible takeovers means the company is at risk. So this is an overview and outlook of the current players in the OS market, but where do other future challenges lie? One such ambitious campaign, I am well informed, comes from Tizen OS which enters with the backing of influential companies, Intel and Samsung.

This relatively unknown OS has been creating buzz within the industry due to its hefty market advocates, but what is this new system?:

Tizen, is an open source Linux-based operating system for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, and generating significant interest smart TVs. One big value that this OS possesses is its aim to offer a consistent user experience across devices. Moreover the system relies on HTML5, compared to the Java used by Andorid, which looks to offer more flexibility for developers and a smoother mobile experience for users. The open source nature, unlike iOS which a closed source system, allows users to make alterations and adaptations to the software on the device.

The backing of Samsung and Intel has been in the offing in the last couple of years. Samsung have now merged its Bada project into Tizen and Intel have further added some their MeeGo work into the mix. Back in July 2013, Samsung announced the 'Tizen App Challenge' with over $4M in cash prizes. This looks to address the problem for new mobile platforms of building a significant app and user community base. Without a large array of apps mobile users will be disinterested in the offering and will not switch from their comfort zones. Furthermore without a user base, the mobile app developers will not bother pumping resources into making an app for a desolate platform. This issue has been addressed by Samsung and Intel by creating this contest which looks to financially reward app creators, in a two way exchange. This competition continues until November of this year.

So why have giants, Samsung and Intel but a large financial backing behind this system. Well for Intel it will help them sell more chips specially for these new platforms, and for Samsung it will allow them to have full ownership of a mobile system which can be integrated in to all their products, and no longer have to rely on one of its competitors for its software. This integration across platforms may mean users could interlink all their Samsung products from mobile to TV.

So when will we begin to see this new OS in action? Well it is still unknown when products will begin to have this new system will launches being delayed to the end of this year. However garnering the attention of the media in recent days has been the leaked plans of Samsung to cut ties with Android OS, showing a press release of the new Samsung Galaxy S4 running with the new Tizen OS 3.0. Samsung are even suggesting that the Tizen OS could be run on their new smart TVs which will hit the market in 2014.

 I expect Tizen OS to surprise and upset many of the current players in the OS market and to claim that third spot within the next five years. I know this may appear surprising with the aforementioned ambitions of Microsoft, however with the support of heavy weights such as Intel and Samsung, the future looks bright for this emerging and exciting OS.

By Harry Sparkes

References
  • Blog.laptopmag.com. 2013. Tizen OS: 10 Things to Know About Samsung’s New Android. [online] Available at: http://blog.laptopmag.com/tizen-os-10-samsungs-android [Accessed: 15 Sep 2013].
  • Reed, B. 2013. IDC: Windows Phone will reach double-digit market share... in 2017. [online] Available at: http://bgr.com/2013/09/05/windows-phone-2017-market-share-projection/ [Accessed: 15 Sep 2013].
  • Trenholm, R. 2013. Samsung Galaxy S4 shows off Tizen 3.0. [online] Available at: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-shows-off-tizen-3-0-50012178/ [Accessed: 15 Sep 2013].
  • Vivion, N. 2013. New mobile OS platform Tizen launches with $4 million challenge. [online] Available at: http://www.tnooz.com/2013/07/09/news/new-mobile-os-platform-tizen-launches-with-4-million-challenge/ [Accessed: 15 Sep 2013].
  • Wikipedia.org. 2013. Tizen. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen [Accessed: 15 Sep 2013].


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