A high end Tizen smartphone by Samsung will be out by the end of the summer. The premium smartphone is expected to be at least at par with the recently released Galaxy S IV in terms of hardware specs, which will definitely be a blow to Android if it does well in the market, at least in Asian and African countries where no other operating system prevails as strongly as the Google’s open source platform.
Tizen is a combined effort of Samsung, Intel, Huawei and a number of other Asian manufacturers, solely aimed at disrupting Android’s market. Android may be considered the best of all the operating systems with its open source features, but the platform has its own loopholes which Tizen will try to fix. To succeed, the OS has to be different from and far better than Android and the other existing operating systems like iOS and Windows Phone (or Blackberry).
Tizen will be highly appreciated by smartphone makers, especially in China where the Google Play store is blocked. Companies like Baidu are stuck with the inability to create native content to strengthen their own business and also create better user experiences. Hence, smartphone makers are also stuck with Google and cannot negotiate mutually beneficial relationships with other providers that are more interested in these markets. That is where Tizen comes into the picture by acting as an alternative to complex workaround solutions for Android’s native applications and by unlocking value for handset makers and local service providers. Adding to this, Intel holds the top position in the PC processor arena and an operating system from the company would have instant brand recognition.
Android has been the easiest path for companies that were eager to get to market and didn’t have enough resources to develop their own OS. At this point in time, it is difficult to see Tizen as anything more than a region-specific collaboration, and it is unlikely that Samsung or any of the involved partners will ditch Android in the short term. Even if they do move away from Android, the effect on Google may not be profound at least in the immediate future as the company is already shut out of these markets and the change will not affect its revenues. How Tizen will fair in the more traditional smartphone markets is another question altogether.
