Samsung Electronics has launched the world’s first smartphone powered by the Tizen operating system.<\/p>\n
The Samsung Z will go on sale in Russia in the July-to-September quarter.<\/p>\n
Most Samsung phones currently use the Android platform, but the South Korean firm has been working with chipmaker Intel to develop Tizen as an alternative operating system.<\/p>\n
It is seen as a way to make Samsung less dependent on Android’s developer, Google.<\/p>\n
“It enables Samsung to hedge its bets much better compared to some of its rivals,” Andrew Milroy, a vice president with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the BBC.<\/p>\n
“However, it is unlikely to make a significant dent on the Android market share.”<\/p>\n
The company will show off the phone at the Tizen Developer Conference, being held this week in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
It did not disclose the device’s price.<\/p>\n
Tizen Store<\/strong><\/p>\n Samsung is currently the world’s best-selling Android device manufacturer.<\/p>\n However, many other rivals such as HTC, Sony, LG and Huawei also use the operating system to power some of their devices.<\/p>\n As the competition in the smartphone sector increases, and growth rates slow, Samsung has been looking at ways to maintain its lead over rivals.<\/p>\n One of the areas that Samsung has been working on is Tizen – a new open source operating system for its gadgets.<\/p>\n “Samsung is seeking to integrate its own components, displays, software and services,” said Ian Fogg from the IHS consultancy.<\/p>\n “Using Android makes the firm dependent on Google, meaning its ability to differentiate its products is less strong than if it had installed its own operating system.<\/p>\n “But by going down the Tizen route, the risk is the firm doesn’t have enough high quality apps available to make the devices good enough for consumers.”<\/p>\n Samsung has taken steps to try to encourage software creators.<\/p>\n It said that in order to “encourage more developers to join, the Tizen Store would provide a special promotional program to all developers for one year”.<\/p>\n Having its own app store could help Samsung generate more revenue from app downloads.<\/p>\n That is because currently customers who purchase apps on Android-powered phones typically funnel revenue to Google rather than Samsung itself.<\/p>\n However, Mr Milroy agreed that Samsung faced a huge challenge in attracting customers to the Tizen Store.<\/p>\n “They have come late to the party and its going to take a long time to create an ecosystem that can rival and compete with Android, iOS or Microsoft.”<\/p>\n Multi-platform?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tizen is also seen by some as being attractive to app developers as it has promised to run software written in the HTML5 web language smoothly.<\/p>\n Mozilla’s Firefox OS also relies on HTML5, offering developers the prospect of cross-platform compatibility in which they can write a single version of their app for multiple operating systems, helping cut costs and coding time.<\/p>\n HTML5-based apps can also be made to work on Android and iOS.<\/p>\n But last year developers, including Google and Facebook, faced performance issues when they released products using it, and later switched to native versions.<\/p>\n Samsung itself delayed the launch of the first smartphones using the operating system.<\/p>\n However, the firm has been looking to adapt the operating system in various gadgets of late.<\/p>\n The latest version of its smartwatch – Galaxy Gear 2 – uses Tizen, unlike its Android-powered predecessor.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Samsung announced that it would release a software development kit for TVs that allows developers to build applications for Tizen-based TVs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Samsung Electronics has launched the world’s first smartphone powered by the Tizen operating system. The Samsung Z will go on sale in Russia in the July-to-September quarter. Most Samsung phones currently use the Android platform, but the South Korean firm has been working with chipmaker Intel to develop Tizen as an alternative operating system. 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