When companies become as big as Samsung is, they start to get very busy in a lot of different areas. The South Korean giant has always been known to produce practically everything in consumer electronics from phones to washing machines, but a few years ago they got into the software game with Tizen. Developed as a mobile operating system to potentially replace Android, Tizen is developed by Samsung, and is currently used on wearables like the newly-launched Gear Fit 2 as well as Gear S2. It’s been used in cameras as well, and it has been used on smartphones as well, such as the Samsung Z3. Now, a new report claims that Samsung is considering using Tizen on all of their products.
The report comes from Korean media, where an executive of the company said that they were using the Indian market, with releases like the aforementioned Samsung Z3, as a sort of “litmus test” to see how the operating system as well as the wider ecosystem can grown and whether or not it can become a viable alternative to Google’s Android or other platforms. For Samsung, the idea is to be able to use Tizen to forge their own path in emerging sectors, such as wearables as well as Internet of Things. With the Gear S2, Samsung have proven that there can be an alternative to both the Apple Watch as well as Android Wear devices and suing Tizen gives them much more control over the product that they want to create.
The unnamed executive went on to say that “if you don’t have your own ecosystem, then you will have no future. Tizen isn’t just a platform developed for use with mobile devices” and it appears as though Samsung is looking to further expand their use of Tizen into their Internet of Things products as well as Smart TVs and other connected devices. To make better use of Tizen is a smart idea, and will no doubt help the entire ecosystem come together. With the recent news of both Apple and Google offering developers more money for app subscriptions, it’s likely that fewer developers will be looking to Tizen as a viable alternative for their apps and games, but as the Tizen platform further expands, Samsung will have bigger bait to catch bigger fish with.