Japanese carrier, NTT DoCoMo, was slated to launch a Tizen-based smartphone from Samsung in the coming months but has now shelved the plans citing lack of interest.
So Hiroki, a spokesman for DoCoMo, said that, "The market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time." Research by IDC Japan showed that the smartphone market in the country grew by just 2.2 percent YoY during the period April-September which convinced DoCoMo to cancel the launch of the Tizen device. Japanese market is currently dominated by iOS and Android devices, but the slow growth may not be enough to support a third operating system successfully.
The latest setback is one of the bigger ones as DoCoMo itself had announced intentions to launch the Tizen-based device.
Tizen OS has been having a rough time ever since its inception as Intel"s Moblin OS for netbooks and tablets. Intel later collaborated with Nokia to develop it for smartphones under the MeeGo name before Nokia dropped out of development after releasing the Nokia N9. Samsung, the latest company to back the project, is aiming to bring the Tizen OS as an alternative to Android and dropped the Bada OS in its favour. Many rumours have surfaced about Tizen devices launching over the past few months but none have been proved right yet.
According to WSJ, we can expect Samsung to showcase Tizen-based devices at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2014 in February at Barcelona.
Source: WSJ | Image via Tizen