Earlier this week, SamMobile revealed that Samsung has pushed back its launch of the company’s first Tizen-based devices. The cause for the delay was reportedly due to issues regarding the app store, resulting in Samsung rolling back the release of its Tizen devices into the fourth quarter of this year, much later than the initial projection of “August or September” when the OS made its first public appearance at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
With the news of the delay, however, comes an intriguing tweet from Eldar Murtazin, one of the most respected providers of insider news – though admittedly with a flaky recent record. His latest tweet suggests that the delay goes far beyond issues with the app store, and that the entire project “is almost dead”. The tweet also goes on to mention a similar story to that of Nokia and MeeGo – from which the Tizen project was born from – that Samsung may struggle to launch “more than one device in 2014”.
It certainly is a massive speculation regarding one of the most promising of the alternative operating systems making their debut this year – and one that definitely needs to be taken with a healthy dose of salt. The Tizen Foundation boasts some of the biggest names in the mobile industry, from OEMs all the way to global network operators, most of whom are unlikely to take any project cancellations lightly. Moreover, Samsung has only just announced the Tizen App Challenge, offering a blockbuster $4 million in prizes. And, perhaps most pertinently, version 2.2 (beta) of the Tizen SDK has just been released to developers.
Big words from the Russian blogger indeed. But if proven to be true – he did, after all, revealed the Nokia-Windows Phone partnership some years back – this could send ripples across the entire mobile landscape in ways that few can envision.
(Source: Twitter (@eldarmurtazin), Unwired View, SamMobile)
