On the mobile o/s battlefield there are three Linux-based operating systems fighting to establish themselves along with the big boys of Android and iOS. Two of these are relatively new – Tizen and Bada – and the third, Palm/Web OS, is making a play to regain its previous stardom. With Android and iOS holding shares of >20%*, surely any of these three would be happy to earn the ~1% share of the minority o/s’s like Windows, Blackberry and Symbian.
Bada is from Samsung, and while shipping on some of their smartphones in South Korea, has had only limited distribution and share, with Android still dominating Europe and North America. And as rumored in January, it’s becoming clear that Bada is destined to merge with Tizen… sooner rather than later. So Tizen ends up with an interesting and complex genealogy. In 2010, Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin operating systems were merged to create MeeGo. Tizen was then created from MeeGo, and now will also merge in Bada.
As Bada merges with Tizen it gains additional backing and momentum with Intel, Samsung and the Linux Foundation supporting and hosting it. Getting both Intel and Samsung behind Tizen seems like some serious horse-power, and adding the Linux Foundation to the equation would seem like a recipe for success.
One of Tizen’s big differentiators is that it is making a big bet on HTML5. With the continued momentum behind the HTML5 movement, I’d say that this is the right time to be making this bet. With Samsung continuing to be one of the big leaders in the production of mobile devices, AND an opportunity for Samsung to leverage Tizen to deliver breakthrough capabilities that would otherwise not be possible (or at least be very difficult to deliver,) I plan on watching Tizen very closely with high hopes for its success.
*Forrester Senior Analyst Jeffrey Hammond recently discussed this and other mobile data facts from the Black Duck KnowledgeBase.
