Tizen is making some big moves. Not only is the open source, Linux-based operating system backed by Samsung and Intel, but now there are 36 more companies that have partnered with the Tizen Association. McAfee, eBay, Konami, Panasonic, and The Weather Channel are only a few of the companies that want to see Tizen grow. The deal was announced by the Tizen Association yesterday.
Tizen began its life growing out of the MeeGo operating system. MeeGo was created by Intel and Nokia, and backed by Samsung. Samsung rolled its own Bada OS into the Tizen program back in February of 2013. The Tizen Association is a group of small company executives. Intel and Samsung have company directors and officers as part of the association as well.
The full list of new Tizen partners was announced at the recent Tizen Developer Summit. It includes mobile carriers, game publishers, and large electronics companies. These companies apparently want to see what Tizen has to offer. Trevor Cornwell of Appbackr, one of the companies supporting Tizen, says that what drew his company to the operating system was its commitment to efficient coding. Tizen allows developers to code in Javascript, HTML5, and CSS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkfd-2cLq-g
NTT Docomo is another company that is backing the Tizen Association. Ryoichi Sugimara is a Tizen board member. He says that the “absence of application or feature mandates” could be a big benefit of the OS for Japanese customers. NTT Docomo has stated in the past that it prefers working with open source projects, particularly Android.
Tizen has been shown running on smartphones before, but Trevor Cornwell says that the operating system’s strengths could lie in its use on other devices. Cornwell says that Tizen “extends beyond the smartphone and tablet ecosystem to a wider array of other connected device segments.” The Tizen Association wants to see its OS running on netbooks, smart TVs, and in vehicles for entertainment and other purposes.
There’s only one consumer device shipping with Tizen on board. It’s a Samsung camera, the Samsung NX300. Samsung slapped their own skin on the OS, so it wasn’t obvious. Currently, there are no commercially available smartphones or tablets that run Tizen out of the box. There’s plenty of interest in the OS, though. Samsung has been rumored to be contemplating a break with Android, and Tizen may provide them the solution they need to make that happen.