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Samsung: Tizen smartphones unlikely to launch in US

Looks like Asia-only for now

Samsung: Tizen smartphones unlikely to launch in US

Samsung has admitted it's unlikely to bring Tizen, it's latest mobile operating system, to the US market anytime in the near future.

That's according to the firm's director of product marketing for its US mobile operations, Ryan Bidan, who claimed in an interview that the US market isn't a suitable region to test out devices running the platform.

"We don't feel the US is a great test market for those kinds of products,"explained Bidan.

"The US market is pretty mature. Bringing a new entrant here that doesn't meet a certain performance bar would be a challenge. Recognising that, we don't want to set ourselves up for failure."

Dual focus

Outside of the US, however, Tizen's long-awaited roll out is set to kick off imminently. Jun Otori of Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo had claimed that Samsung's handsets should be hitting Japan at the end of March.

What's more, it's expected that the first smartphone running Tizen – a product of co-operations between Samsung, Intel and the Linux Foundation, with the Linux-based OS having originally been based on Nokia and Intel's abandoned MeeGo OS – could be unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Samsung had originally intended to launch its first Tizen handsets in 2013, with the platform set to give the Korean giant an alternative to its current reliance on Android.

When quizzed about Samsung's enormous backing of the Tizen Association, Bidan suggested that in order for the company to reach new heights, it must start innovating with software, as well as hardware.

"It's absolutely the right direction for us," said Bidan.

"Our opportunity to differentiate and create really neat products for consumers lies in a holistic product solution -hardware and software."

[source: Fierce Wireless]


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