The Tizen operating system is still something of a mythological creature--no one has seen it in action, nor has anyone owned a smartphone running the open source OS. Nonetheless, Samsung has pinned its hopes for freedom from Android on Tizen.
Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, Tizen's partners are questioning Samsung about the importance of the new OS. Many app developers don't see the point in starting all over again with a new OS. After all, Android and iOS are serving the masses well enough and Windows Phone, well, that's just something they put up with. However, instead of backing down, Samsung is reportedly doing what it can to promote Tizen and convince its partners that there's room for another mobile OS.
Despite Samsung's best efforts, mobile service providers are jumping ship, leaving Tizen dead in the water. Japan's NTT Docomo, France's Orange, Sprint and Telefonica have all pulled the plug on Tizen, citing their customers' lack of interest in yet another mobile OS. It seems that Samsung may have missed its chance to make Tizen popular by holding off too long for "the right time" for its release to magically appear.
Perhaps Tizen could have made a dent in emerging markets a few years ago and grown from there, but Samsung always kept it under wraps, adding new features and polishing the interface. Now it may be too late. Although Samsung will reportedly announce Tizen at Mobile World Congress this year, the company may run into some serious trouble without carrier support.
So far, only a Samsung-made camera exists with Tizen onboard and the public's reaction was lukewarm to say the least. Some tech pundits believe that Samsung will ditch Tizen and toe the line with Google, now that the two tech companies have agreed to travel the same road. Others believe that Google's insistence that Samsung cut back on the customization of Android will back fire and encourage Samsung to invest more time and money in Tizen.
In a sense, it's an awful catch 22: Tizen can't succeed without great features and a huge app selection to support its growth, but app developers don't have any incentive to develop apps for Tizen until it becomes more popular.
At this point, it's impossible to say whether Samsung will launch Tizen or abandon it completely at MWC 2014, but mobile carriers and app developers are certainly sending a very clear message: There is no demand for Tizen.
