Tizen – Noise without substance

The latest news from Tizen is unlikely to change anything.

• Despite its leading supporter shelving its plans to launch devices, the Tizen association has announced a raft of new members and plans to show devices at MWC on 23^rd February.
• Tizen is not new. It is the remnant of a plethora of industry consortia that have spent the last 10 years trying to come up with an industry standard upon which to build a Linux based mobile phone.
• As support and cash have dwindled, these consortia have all merged with one another to form the Tizen project which is now part of the much larger Linux Foundation.
• The Tizen project is mostly driven by Samsung as it has written almost all of the code and produced the ill-fated 360 handsets for Vodafone in 2009.
• Until recently, Tizen has also been strongly supported by NTTDoCoMo which has been planning to launch handsets on its Japanese network.
• However, its launch of the iPhone and the dominance of Android in its network is a clear signal that there is no space for Tizen based devices at this time.
• This is especially the case as there is no ecosystem, applications or services for these devices meaning that user appeal would be virtually zero.
• Hence, NTTDoCoMo has indefinitely shelved its plans to launch Tizen devices (see here) leaving the platform in limbo.
• The association has just welcomed 15 new members including Baidu, Softbank and ZTE which is bound to be trumpeted as a new beginning for the beleaguered platform.
• In reality, I suspect that these new members are simply exploring their options in a world where Android is a commodity and all of the value is being generated by the Google ecosystem, leaving them with PC margins at best.
• Using something other than Android could allow these players to cut the apron strings to Google and this is why I suspect they have signed up.
• However, there is no point in using Tizen when one can use the open distribution of Android and still enjoy some compatibility without being beholden to Google.
• Hence, I suspect that these new members will have a look at the code to which they now have access, and reach the same conclusion that NTTDoCoMo has and decide to do nothing.
• I am expecting some noise and new found enthusiasm for Tizen at Mobile World Congress but once the dust has settled it will just be more of the same.
• If one wishes to change the trajectory of a projectile, one has to apply a force to it.
• Nothing has changed at Tizen and so its downward trajectory also remains unchanged.