Samsung unveiled its Tizen-based wearable gadgets including Galaxy Gear 2 at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held in Barcelona early this year. (image: Samsung Electronics)
SEOUL, Sep. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – Samsung Electronics will launch a variety of TV and other home appliance products adopting its own proprietary operating system “Tizen” from next year. According to executives of the company’s consumer electronic division on September 11, it would accelerate the pace of the Tizen-based business by introducing models embedded with Tizen operating system to be on display in the upcoming CES 2015 in Las Vegas early next year.
Kim Hyun-seok, vice president of Samsung’s visual display division, said, “We are preparing to launch Tizen TV by next year. Currently tests are under way to see how stable the system is. By early next year, you will see a lot of TVs with Tizen operating system at CES. As for Samsung Smart TV, it will ultimately be converged toward Tizen.” Another executive in charge of smart home said, “Most home electronic appliances will be Tizen based from next year. Even though we haven’t decided which items are to be embedded with Tizen, there will be a lot of them.”
The reason Samsung Electronics has turned toward Tizen in the areas of TV and home appliances has to do with the fact that it is convinced that it can take the leadership in these markets unlike the market for smartphones that have already been dominated by Android (Google) and iOS (Apple). Until last year, Samsung has consistently been the No. 1 player in the world’s TV market for eight years. In the home appliance market, Samsung is certain to take the No. 1 spot next year.
Tizen is an operating system jointly developed by Intel and Samsung in 2012. In a Tizen developers conference held in June this year, the companies revealed for the first time the software developer kit in support of developing smart TV apps. Up until now, Samsung Mirrorless Camera, Gear 2, and Gear 2 Neo have adopted Tizen as their embedded operating system.
By Sean Chung (schung10@koreabizwire.com)
