Liking what you've seen of Tizen in our recent peeks at the Intel and Samsung-backed operating system? If you're in the U.S., you may still have to wait quite a while before you're able to try the software out for yourself.
Ryan Bidan, director of Samsung's U.S. mobile marketing, recently indicated to FierceWireless that his company is unlikely to offer its first Tizen-powered smartphones in the U.S. "We don't feel the U.S. is a great test market for those kinds of products," Bidan explained, going on to say that because the U.S. smartphone market is so mature, it'd be difficult for a new platform to gain a solid footing. "Recognizing that, we don't want to set ourselves up for failure."
The first Samsung-made Tizen smartphone is expected to make its official debut at Mobile World Congress at the end of February. Details on the device are light, but recent leaks have shown the software running on devices that resemble both the Galaxy S III and Galaxy S 4. Meanwhile, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has indicated that it plans to begin selling Tizen phones to the public at the end of March.
Tizen is an open source platform that's actually made to run on several different kinds of electronics, including smartphones, in-car entertainment systems and smart televisions. Despite the fact that we haven't really seen many Tizen-powered products hit the market, the OS has actually been in development for a couple of years now and is currently sitting at version 2.2.1. We've gotten a few peeks at the software during its development process, so we've got a rough idea of what it looks like, but it'll still be interesting to check out the final product once Tizen phones begin shipping to consumers. Here's to hoping that it's not too long before some of those handsets are shipped to the U.S.
Via FierceWireless
