A few days after popular Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin claimed that Tizen, the Linux-based open source operating system, was dead on arrival (DoA) and may, indeed, have been cancelled, Intel, the company which is leading the development of the platform with Samsung has issued a statement, refuting Murtazin’s claim.
According to a report by TizenExperts, Intel has issued a statement reiterating its commitment to the development of Tizen.
“Intel is very committed to the development of Tizen. We see a unique role for Tizen in the industry to create and to grow a new, open and flexible, mobile operating system that allows developers to write once/run on many devices. Tizen has received broad industry support through the Tizen Association and has achieved major milestones this year including establishing the storefront, releasing the Tizen 2.1 source code, the Tizen IVI 2.0 and the Tizen 2.2 Beta SDK that was just released yesterday, ” said Intel.
Prior to Murtazin’s tweet, Korean website iNews24 had reported that Samsung was pushing its Tizen OS powered smartphones to October or November 2013 from their original expected launch in August or September. It blamed the lack of software ecosystem for the delay, adding that Samsung wanted to make sure that its app catalogue is complete before the phones were released.
It’s worth pointing out that Intel has not published the statement elsewhere, and Samsung has also not commented on the matter, yet. However, going by the efforts invested into the platform by both companies that included putting together the Tizen Developer Conference in May, saying that the platform is on its deathbed seems premature.
Leaked images of GT-i8800 codenamed Redwood, a new smartphone running the Tizen version 2.1.0 had surfaced online in May. The device looked similar to Samsun’s existing Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II. Images revealed that Samsung has also integrated other features from its Android devices including Wi-Fi Direct, S Beam and S Voice. Screenshots of the S Voice interface seem to be quite similar to that on Android, though the ‘Hi Galaxy’ was evidently replaced with a ‘Hi Tizen’. Another screenshot also featured the AllShare icon with ‘Screen Mirroring’ so the device would most probably offer DLNA connectivity.
