Samsung is considering expanding the use of the open-source Tizen operating system to all its devices, according to the Korea Times. Tizen is presently used in wearables, TVs and in a limited range of smartphones.
Samsung is looking to cut its heavy reliance on Google’s Android platform, the paper says. It quoted an unnamed senior Samsung executive saying: ‘”If you don’t have your own ecosystem, then you will have no future.”
He added that Samsung is already test marketing Tizen mobiles in India. “Samsung’s Z-branded Tizen-powered phones are popular with Indian consumers. During the first quarter of this year, Samsung sold about 64 million phones there. This means that Tizen is proving its competitiveness,” he said.
Tizen debuted in 2011 as a joint project between the Linux Foundation and the LiMo Foundation, back by a number of mobile carriers. It was renamed the Tizen Association in 2012. It appears to be on the cusp of a resurgence as a smartphone OS. IDG News reported in April that Tizen 3.0, due out in beta in July, “is a big technological upgrade . a 64-bit capable OS, like iOS and Android.”
