According to PC World, devices running the Tizen OS will be showing up a day before the opening of Mobile World Congress, showing up in Barcelona on February 23rd. Invitations were e-mailed out today, to an event that would provide “an exclusive sneak preview of the newest Tizen devices as well as an opportunity to learn about the major milestones that the Tizen project has hit since last year’s event.”
Tizen is a mobile OS that has been in development for some time, with backers such as Samsung, Intel, Vodafone and Fujitsu. It’s goal is to provide a mobile OS to compete with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms, which is a tough hill to climb. Tizen has been facing hurdles as well, with Samsung delaying the first Tizen OS smartphone back in July. Since then we’ve seen the mobile OS in action, and it doesn’t look to be that much different from Google’s Android OS.
Tizen isn’t just for smartphones and tablets, though. The vision of the project’s backers are looking to make the OS as permeable as possible, for future uses in cars and smart appliances such as Samsung’s upcoming smart fridge and smart cameras as well.
2014 could be the year that Tizen comes into its own, but it is facing other mobile OS upstarts such as Firefox OS and Sailfish OS who have already released functional versions of their OS’s. whether any of these emerging mobile OS’s can take on Google or Apple remains to be seen. But if BlackBerry’s 2013 performance can be used as an indicator, there’s not enough room in the current mobile OS market for newcomers.