From Samsung Android to Samsung Tizen Mobiles – DoCoMo, Vodafone, Sprint back Tizen Mobile OS

Samsung Electronics Co which is churning Billions of Dollars in QoQ Profit from the Android Mobile OS is sensing increasing threat from Google owned Motorola and hence to mitigate the risk has thrown its weight behind Tizen Mobile OS [Derived from the Linux Kernel] consortium and is expected to launch the first Samsung Tizen Mobile in 2013.

NTT DoCoMo, the biggest wireless carrier in Japan, has extended its support to Tizen along with the already expected support from Vodafone in the UK and France Telecom. Tizen is already part of the Sprint roadmap. Sprint was the first US telecom player to join the Tizen Association back in 2012. Since the Mobile World Congress in 2012. This puts Tizen in the spotlight for the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Tizen and The Roadmap for Connected Devices
Tizen is positioned as another open-source software platform looking to become a global standard across multiple devices, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, smart TVs, in-vehicle infotainment devices and ultimately the Internet of Things. Like every other platform, Tizen boasts a flexible and scalable architecture and a set of frameworks that run below user interfaces that support numerous mobile and computing functions.

Mobile Technology Platform Wars
Mobile OS Platforms are a fundamental threat to the longer-term monetisation and ecosystem growth of Google’s Android, and its dominance is starting to wane, as evidenced by Samsung’s development of Tizen, Global telecom operators’ support to Firefox and Chinese handset vendors’ preference for new software platforms If Samsung manages to integrate and deliver cross-platform portability between Android and Tizen, as the largest Android handset vendor, we believe Samsung has an opportunity to take control of an open platform. Samsung will have effectively back-door forked Android in a way similar to what Amazon did with the Kindle FIRE or the Chinese White Box market are trying to do on MediaTek.

What are the Challenges faced by Tizen and other Mobile OS Platforms ?
As the price of smart devices in general comes down (priced in the EUR100 range in the Chinese channel), the challenges today for building a proprietary software platform against the technological entry barriers created by Apple and Microsoft is to develop the ecosystem with Large Number of Developers building Mobile Apps. Tizen should be well received by developers because of its robust HTML5 development capabilities and HTML5’s increased traction among app developers. With more than half of the consumer browser market using HTML5 browsers and recent alignment of the industry with the video support on MPEG4 (H.264).