When Samsung announced the Tizen-powered Samsung Z in early June, it seemed that the litany of delays for the new operating system backed by Samsung, Intel and others was finally at an end. It was not to be though. The launch was to have taken place in Moscow, Russia on July 10 at a Tizen developer event. With just days to go, Samsung canceled the launch, promising only that “the smartphone will appear on the Russian market later, when we can offer our users a fullest portfolio of applications.”
No explanation for the last minute decision was given. Samsung also did not provide a new launch date. Having initially promised to launch the Samsung Z in Q3, it could still meet that target as the third quarter wraps up at the end of September.
The event itself went ahead. Many attendees suggested that the launch may have been delayed due to a lack of developer support. In contrast to events such as WWDC or Google I/O which attract thousands of developers, the Tizen event was “sparsely populated, with just half of the seats filled in the congress hall of a hotel in central Moscow.”
As we have seen with other mobile operating systems, a strong app ecosystem is key to its success. If Tizen and its backers cannot attract developers to build apps for it, it could quickly become another footnote in the history of mobile devices and a costly failure for Samsung and the Tizen community.
Source : The Wall Street Journal