NTT DoCoMo has shelved plans for a March launch of a smartphone featuring a new operating system called Tizen, dealing a blow to one of the platform’s key backers – Samsung
Japan’s largest mobile carrier said Friday that the Japanese smartphone market wasn’t growing fast enough for it to support a third mobile operating system, a reference to Apple’s iOS operating system and Google’s Android, which powers the majority of Samsung’s devices. In explaining its decision, DoCoMo cited research by IDC Japan showing the country’s smartphone market in the April-to-September period grew only 2.2% from a year earlier.
“The market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time,” DoCoMo spokesman So Hiroki said Friday.
The victims of war.
I am totally shocked by this completely unprecedented turn of events. </sarcasm>
I know right? What were the chances that Maemo, er Moblin, er MeeGo, um LiMo, I mean…Tizen would in some way turn out to be a massive dissapointment and ever fail to actually launch in any meaningful way? Completely unprecedented!
FWIW “Maemo, er Moblin, er MeeGo, I mean…” Sailfish has gone into production and is still trying.
Edited 2014-01-18 06:25 UTC
From a developer point of view I don’t see any compeling reason to target it.
I don’t mean that Sailfish is to survive, I merely stress that it has made it further then Tizen. I don’t envision Jolla becoming major player, but I’m definitely not in position to judge on it, given that two years ago I was pretty sure they won’t release anything at all.
Yeah. I have pondered this too.
I’m working on software at the moment that will be shipped for Android then iOS and then what?
Well, the code is mostly abstract (C/C++ stuff with my own libraries for platform abstraction & GLES and/or QtOpenGL backends). The rest of the code is supplied by the OS – which doesn’t amount to much in most cases.
The most useful port we have is the Qt 5 version as it allows desktop testing in a way that Android/iOS do not (emulation is not as good as running the code native on a desktop – not for any one big reason but about 1000 little, and not so little, ones). I bought some cheapo AMD based touch screen PCs so even that user interface style can be tested – albeit a little kludgey.
So. I’m left thinking. Qt is soooo nice that why not target desktop _AND_ Jolla devices too? There might not be a huge number of customers there but the development work is already 90% there.
If, however, the distribution/packaging model is then going to cost me a tone of time then I just won’t bother. This I have not yet looked into.
I think I’m suggesting that if it is possible to target these platforms from an engineering perspective and the distribution model is low cost then the inner engineer in me says “go ahead – do it – if you make a handful of people happy that’s karma you can’t buy”
Tizen is not a “Korean platform.” Docomo is a principal member of the consortium actually.
https://www.tizenassociation.org/members/
Its written on the wall that the delay is caused by evaluation of where Tizen is and its nowhere near ready for the masses. Thats the real news. After years of development, with (or because of?) such big companies involved, its still nowhere, not there. How much more years of delay is open up for imagination.
I used to be a fan of Tizen but they seem to move into the complete wrong direction. What does it help to have a product that never ships? Just insane. So, finally I agree with Nelson on something: Tizen is doomed.
Maybe they could learn 100-200 things from Jolla who actually managed to ship a good product on time with far less resources.
Edited 2014-01-18 19:05 UTC
Its okay, you weren’t the only one that was wrong. Tomi was also spectacularly wrong:
He goes on to say that this is what Nokia should’ve done with MeeGo. And this is the guy that people take seriously..
Source: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/03/preview-of-the…
Design by comitee. What killed MeeGo, and the reason Symbian stagnated in the 2004-2006 years (both the S60 and the UIQ branch).
First all the company CEOs have to agree that no interests of any company involved are hurt. Then they have to agree who will make what part of the project. Then they have to agree on what exactly they ‘re going to make, with everyone pulling in the direction they want. “What, you mean we have to ship this thing on time?”
My guess for Tizen:
-The carriers want a thin-client OS, Samsung wants features. The other OEMs want something in the middle, aka an OS for low-end phones with enough features.
-The carriers want to be able to mutilate the OS (see what Vodafone did to LiMo) and produce “subplatforms”, Samsung wants a consistent platform.
While they sort out this mess, you can go buy an Android or Jolla (if you want real Linux) and be done with it.
Edited 2014-01-18 21:44 UTC
That is not indulging in necrophilia. The dead should be left to rest in peace
Samsung is in many ways empowered by the system of subsidized phones that come with contracts. Yet, these deals give carriers enough power to thwart Samsung’s plans with Tizen. So they can be content with being the largest hardware supplier of Android phones. Or blow up the system risking certain profits, for the slim chance to have their own platform which would also take the profits that come with the mobile stores too.
I’m guessing Tizen will be killed off as phone platform.
But for lovers of alt mobile operating systems, the best thing would be for Samsung ( along with Google, etc) to help blow up the current system, as it does limit phone choice.
It never had chance, given its troubled past.
A few geeks here and there might dream of a pure GNU/Linux mobile distribution, but that is not how the telecomunications market works.
They have been trying this since the Openmoko days.
But, but, but… Windows Phone it was to be number 3 too.
Victim or Loser?
This world of innovation and breakthrough is no longer for the cowards inside their comfort zone, let others take the flag, im sure there are benefits implementing a mobile OS like this one, just some miopic corps are clearly not interested.
There are 3 major, well supported OS’s. Android, iOS & Windows Phone .
WinPho _will_ gain market share. I suspect it is stuck at number 3 but it will garner market share and that’s that. There are plenty of folks who will buy it because it’s Windows. There are plenty of folks that will buy it because it’s Nokia.
However, slowly but surely the mobile TelCo’s are being forced into a new model – one they are reticent about but have little or no choice.
That is the model of the “pure data provider” – the ISP if you like.
There are enough folks around that are prepared to buy their own device (Jolla for example) and then just buy “data” from a provider. It may never amount to more than 1 or 2% but the market is there and is, essentially, a self sustaining community. Finding hardware to run this stuff on is slightly more problematic.
Given the relative cheapness of Android for large hardware providers (Samsung, LG etc) I can’t really see anything supplanting Android as the “consumer choice” for a long time.
Google supply a lot to the device manufacturers and most of the work (outside of the mandatory, pointless, shovel-ware) is code and debugging these guys would have to do regardless of OS choice.
Frankly the HW manufacturers would be fairly insane to choose anything except Android. Of course, they couldn’t choose iOS even if they wanted too (and Apple would be insane to license the OS). WinPho – I honestly suspect that the MS+Nokia combination is enough to grab a very profitable chunk of the market.
If I was allowed, I would upvote you.
Edited 2014-01-18 17:18 UTC
I think the problem here is peoples comfort zones as well. I have heard a lot of people who complain that Microsoft controls all with Windows, and that Apple controls all with Mac OS X. Yet, they are ready to turn their attention and wallets to Google, Apple and Microsoft in terms of their devices. I had a Symbian phone until 2014, I recently had to get a new one. But the point being, if people are tired of big companies controlling their technology and computing environments, why do they keep going back time after time? Why are people so scared to invest in smaller companies? Those questions need to be addressed.
Roberto J. Dohnert
Head Developer
Black Lab Linux
http://www.blacklablinux.org
Is something
that brings stagnation
to markets
Naybe they should target tablet devices first along with developing countries. Its hard to tell because I myself was sort of puzzled as to why we needed Tizen.
Roberto J. Dohnert
Head Developer
Black Lab Linux
http://www.blacklablinux.org