We were all disappointed when Samsung did not release the Samsung Z (SM-Z910F) as expected last month. The Tizen smartphone has certainly had a rough journey, with repeated cancellations of all expected release dates over the last 18 months.
Now it appears that Samsung are cancelling ANY release plans for the Samsung Z, and are concentrating their efforts on budget low to medium end smartphone’s such as the Tizen based Samsung SM-Z130H and SM-130E, this is according to several sources familiar with the situation. Samsung hope that this new strategy will help fend off challenges from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, who are one of china’s largest electronics companies that sells mobile phones and who has shifted over 26 million handsets in the first half of this year alone, not bad for a company that was founded a mere 4 years ago.
Samsung cited the delay for the Samsung Z (SM-Z910F) as the Tizen application ecosystem is not ready, but the budget type of strategy might not be seen as the best way to get developers onto the Tizen platform, after all budget smartphone users do not spend as much on applications, so the opportunity for developers to make significant revenue will be limited. Developers that have ported their applications over to Tizen over the last couple of years are becoming weary of a Platform that does not seem to be going anywhere, and no Smartphone public roadmap to say otherwise.
The Korean tech giant does seem to be going full speed ahead with wearable tech, with the Tizen based Gear Solo smartwatch expected to debut at the upcoming IFA 2014 european show, but wearable in a new growing market that developers will see their return over the next few years, certainly not as fast as a return that the smartphone market will give them.
We now look towards the Tizen Developer Summit Shanghai in October, to see how well developers from the far east are taking to Tizen. Another major conference will be the Samsung Developers Conference in November (San Francisco), where the Tizen content will show what Tizen platforms areas of Tizen are of immediate interest to Samsung, wearable and Tizen TV are expected to have reasonable content at the conference, but smartphone might be weak.
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