What is Tizen?
Tizen is an Operating System that is a project of the Linux Foundation. It has been adopted by Samsung as its in-house Operating System. Tizen is not new to the market as Samsung has already incorporated it in a number of its devices including smart phones and televisions. Android ,which is Google’s products has been around for a while and has dominated a large part of the market. The question about whether Tizen will be able to stand up to Android and even Apple’s iOS needs to be answered.
Market response to Tizen
Tizen has been moderately received by the market. The problem with introducing a whole new operating system is that it needed to provide alternatives for all the applications and games that Google has so graciously provided the market within a wide range of smart phones so far. The good thing about a new operating system, on the other hand, is that the market rarely cares about the operating system available in the smart phone as long as it is able to perform the functions one desires with the same, if not better efficiency.
Tizen was used in the Samsung Z1 which was released in India in 2015. The phone started off at a sluggish pace, but it picked up, recording sales of up to one million handsets within the first six months. This could be attributed to the fact that the phone cost about $90. Tizen has managed to provide buyers with an affordable option to Samsung smart phones. Tizen also posted a record by surpassing Blackberr in rankings after the first few months of its release.
Tizen in other devices
Tizen is present on some of Samsung’s other devices such as televisions and so far there have been no complaints about the operating system. In fact, in mobile phones such as the Samsung Z1 and the Z3, the operating system has been known to offer good battery efficiency and also come with some free entertainment ware. The release of these phones raised awareness about the operating system.
Tizen phone to be released in 2016
There have been rumors about a high end smart phone from Samsung running on Tizen set to be released in 2016. Speculation is that Samsung will expand its existing Z line to cater to the high end market. This has not been substantiated by an official announcement yet. Samsung has been working on the Samsung S7 and so almost all the rumors and leaks have been about the new flagship. The company has released great gadgets running on the operating system, the most notable being the Gear S2 which was on display at CES 2016. It has a good looking and a coherent user interface. Hopefully, this greatness will be replicated in the high end phone to be released within the year.
Conclusion
Tizen has a good chance of going head to head with the Android. Samsung has the capacity to do so as they are a well known brand and have the capacity to run the system on their phones to further expose the market to the new OS.
Samsung Rumors Blog 