Samsung's plans to launch Tizen smartphones on Japan's NTT DoCoMo carrier put on shelf

The most prominent carrier partner for the upcoming Samsung-made Tizen operating system, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo, has shelved plans to launch a Tizen phone. Today, the carrier confirmed that it has put initial plans to bring a Tizen smartphone to its lineup on shelf, saying that Android and iOS are already too popular and the market is not growing fast enough for a third platform.

"The market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time," So Hiroki, a spokesman for DoCoMo, said on Friday.

DoCoMo even quoted statistical figures by IDC Japan research showing that the local smartphone market has grown by merely 2.2% in April to September of 2013.

This is clearly a disappointment for Samsung, the company that has put the immense effort into developing its own Tizen operating system. The platform was first rumored to launch in late 2012, then the release dates were pushed further away, to only arrive at this indefinite decision by the main partner DoCoMo. Interestingly enough, Tizen is not meant to arrive to the United States. The US market is seen as too mature for yet another platform, so Tizen's focus is primarily on markets outside the US like Asia and Europe.

The list of other high-profile backers for Tizen includes Intel, Orange and Vodafone group, so there are still chances for it to launch in other countries, but the scale won’t be the same without DoCoMo. Latest whispers on the street have suggested that Samsung might finally officially lift the cover off real Tizen smartphones at Mobile World Congress, an event kicking off in just a few weeks in Barcelona. Let’s wait and see. Meanwhile, though, feel free to let us know your opinion about Tizen: do we need yet another operating system and is there space for it?

source: WSJ