Samsung Electronics is steadily expanding ecosystem of operating system (OS) of Tizen. The company is expanding to include wearable devices such as smart TVs, smart home appliances, and smart watches, beyond simple smartphones. And it is accelerating targeting the Internet of Things (IoT) market. In the mobile field, there is interest in whether the untapped Tizen will become the IoT platform.

According to industry sources on May 16, the Tizen Union will hold the "Tizen Developer Conference (TDC 2017)" at the Hilton Union Square Hotel in San Francisco, USA on May 16 and 17 (local time).

Tizen is a mobile operating system (OS) that has been participated by Intel, NTT DoCoMo and NTT DoCoMo and led by the Linux Foundation and Samsung Electronics. The TDC 2017, which marks its fifth anniversary this year, is an event for application developers and others. It will show various products and Software Development Kit (SDK) that apply Tizen OS and perform various sessions for developers.

Tizen started out as a mobile OS, but it is still struggling in the smartphone market. According to market researcher Strategy Analytics, the global smartphone market share of Tizen in the first quarter of this year is 0%. Its sales volume is only 70,000 units, so its share is close to 0%. This is 0.2% (0.29 million units) in 2015 and 0.1% (910,000 units) in 2016.

In the wearable appliances market, it is comforting for Tizen that the market share of 19% is second in the market that is beating Android wear (18%).

Samsung focuses on IoT. It is a strategy that will focus on the IoT market, where Google Android and Apple iOS do not have a clear platform yet, rather than the mobile OS market. This year`s TDC event has also focused on highlighting Tizen as an IoT platform. The theme of the event is `Ready to Connect, Get Involved!` Samsung has applied smart phones such as smart TVs, refrigerators and smart watches since launching its first smartphone in 2015. Earlier, Samsung Electronics predicted that by 2020, most of the household appliances will be equipped with Tizen.

Samsung Electronics plans to showcase the 4.0 version at the event. Tizen 4.0, which is scheduled to be released in September, features `scalability`, including support for Microsoft`s .NET programming language. Besides, it is expected to introduce Tizen RT, which can be applied to small appliances. A Samsung representative stated, "We will show products equipped with upgraded Tizen. We also offer on-site training opportunities for developers."

That does not mean that the mobile platform market has been abandoned by the company. The ‘Samsung Z4’, the fourth smartphone equipped with Tizen, will be launched in India on May 19. In the market, however, Tizen is in a dubious state. In fact, there are only few places that offer products equipped with Tizen other than Samsung Electronics.

Kim Rok-ho, a researcher at Hana Financial Investment Corporation, explained "The operating system, which has little impact on existing smartphones, will not easily be able to stand out in the IoT field at once." (IoT extension of Tizen) "I think Samsung should look further to not to lag behind in the smartphone ecosystem." Kwon Sung-ryung, a researcher at Dongbu Securities, said, "In order for the OS to take its place, not a single maker is pushing, but a business model and developers and companies must rush to complete the ecosystem. So far, it is suspicious that Tizen can take strong position in the market. "


By Jung Yoon Hee yuni@


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