IoT Platform Expansion
Samsung Electronics is continuously making an effort to expand the Tizen operating system (OS) ecosystem. The company is expanding the system from smartphones to smart televisions, smart home appliances and wearable devices including smart watches, targeting the Internet of Things (IoT) market. Accordingly, all eyes are on whether the Tizen will be able to position itself as the IoT platform, though the system struggled in the mobile sector.
According to industry sources on May 16, the Tizen confederation will hold the Tizen Developer Conference (TDC) 2017 at the Hilton Union Square Hotel in San Francisco from the 16th to 17th (local time).
Tizen is a mobile operating system participated in by Intel, Vodafone of the U.K., Huawei of China and NTT Docomo of Japan, Led by Linux Foundation and Samsung Electronics. TDC, as an annual technical conference for global application developers, is a showcase of Tizen’s new technologies and products. It was held in San Francisco in 2012 for the first time.
Tizen was developed as the mobile OS, but it is struggling in the smartphone market. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Tizen has a zero percent share in the global smartphone market in the first quarter of this year with sales of 70,000 units. Its market share decreased from 0.2 percent, or 2.9 million units, in 2015 to 0.1 percent, or 980,000 units, in 2016.
It is a little comfort that Tizen ranked second in the wearable device market with a 19 percent share, surpassing Android Wear with 18 percent.
So, Samsung turned its eyes on the IoT. The company is planning to focus on the IoT market in where there is no firm and strong platform yet rather than the mobile OS market which is dominated by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. This year’s TDC also focuses on highlighting Tizen as the IoT platform with the theme “Ready to Connect, Get Involved!” Since launching the first Tizen-powered smartphone in 2015, Samsung Electronics has been using Tizen on smart TVs, refrigerators and smart watches. Previously, the company pledged to install Tizen in most home appliances by 2020.
Samsung Electronics plans to unveil the Tizen 4.0 platform at the TDC 2017. Expandability is a key feature of Tizen 4.0, which will be officially released in September, including supporting Microsoft’s programming language “.Net.” In addition, the company is expected to introduce Tizen RT which can be applied to small appliances.
However, Samsung Electronics has not completely ruled out the mobile platform market. The company will launch the fourth Tizen smartphone “Samsung Z4” in the Indian market on the 19th. The market, however, has a doubt about Tizen. In fact, Samsung Electronics is the only company that releases Tizen-powered products.