Samsung has just announced the release of its own Tizen smartphone operating system:
The Tizen platform delivers a fast, optimal performance with improved memory management. The Tizen-based Samsung Z offers a faster startup time and immediate multi-tasking capabilities. The Samsung Z fully supports superb 2D and 3D graphic qualities, smoother scrolling and an improved rendering performance for web browsing. Users will also be able to enjoy safe and secure privacy protection using the built-in fingerprint sensor.
The Samsung Z is not the company’s flagship phone, nor will it ever be. Samsung has already spent tens of millions of dollars creating the belief among consumers that its Galaxy S5 is the only viable competitor to the Apple iPhone.
Samsung has not said enough about why it believes the Tizen platform will have any success at all. It will launch the product in Russia, which is not a major smartphone market.
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Samsung will not adopt a system — even if the system is its own — if that system hurts its competitive advantage. Android has not only been accepted by manufacturers. It is one standard, along with Apple’s, of consumer preference. Armies of consumers are unlikely to warm to a completely new smartphone operating system when the two they favor are the foundations of the smartphone experience.
Additionally, and perhaps most challenging for Samsung is the huge number of apps already built to integrate into Android and Apple products. It has taken years for the two companies to collect hundreds of thousands of apps that have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times. A new platform cannot hope to be successful without this kind of developer adoption.
It is too early to tell for certain whether Tizen will be a failure, but there is nothing to argue that it can be successful.
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