June is under the aegis of the new Tizen operating system. Tizen developers position this new OS as “The OS of Everything,” which is bound to capture a significant market share.
At the beginning of June, right before the annual Tizen Developer Conference, 37 new companies joined Tizen Association, which now contains 88 members, including Samsung, Fujitsu, Huawei, LG, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Sprint, Vodafone, SK Telecom, Telefonica, and many others.
At the conference in San Francisco, Samsung demonstrated two new products—the first-ever Samsung Tizen-based smartphone named “Samsung Z” and a Tizen-operated smart TV prototype. Samsung already has Tizen-based devices on the market, including a digital camera (NX300M) and smartwatches (Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo).
Tizen is an open and flexible operating system built from the ground up to address the needs of all mobile and connected device ecosystem stakeholders, including device manufacturers, mobile operators, application developers, and independent software vendors (ISVs).
In previous years, Tizen was mainly considered a platform for mobile solutions and in-vehicle infotainment (iVi) systems. This year, the focus shifted to developing the complex IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem. The members of the Tizen Association believe that this operating system creates many new opportunities that we don’t plan to miss. Prototypes of digital cameras and iVi systems and demonstrations of the interaction of various Tizen-based devices at the recent event definitely supported this statement.
The members of the Tizen Association have their own response to those who doubt the viability and prospects of yet another operating system. Such non-believers are advised to look at the whole picture: When you find all the devices you use on a regular basis to be Tizen-based and interacting seamlessly with each other, you won’t wonder which OS should be running on your new smartphone. Time will tell if these expectations are met. Currently, Tizen is generating the keen interest of OEMs, app developers, and end users.Samsung Enterprise Forum 2014, held just one day after the Tizen Developer Conference, also paid quite a lot of attention to the new operating system—a large session was entirely dedicated to the matters of Tizen-based development.
However, the future of Tizen is a hot topic for many experts. For example, research company Strategy Analytics expects Tizen to remain a niche OS in the next couple of years but to gain momentum. A January report concluded, “Microsoft, Firefox, and Tizen will be among the fastest-growing operating systems, and they will steadily chip away at Android’s installed base during the next five years.”
Under these circumstances, the market is challenged by software developers’ needs for Tizen-based products and apps. Auriga is making some serious effort to occupy this niche. Auriga’s engineers point out that Tizen is characterized by its focus on HTML5 applications and interfaces as well as its fully functional support of API by third-party vendors. It allows the developer to work through possible problems concerning the use of native libraries and simplifies the application development process.
Our engineers participated in a number of Tizen-related projects, starting with the launch of the beta version of this operating system in 2012.
This comes as no surprise because Auriga’s portfolio includes many projects related to Android and embedded Linux development. Auriga possesses extensive experience in working with Linux OS and kernel development; knowledge of target platforms (ARM, x86, frameworks used in Tizen); expertise related to IDE, compilers, optimization, emulation, and virtual machines; as well as testing and problem analysis skills. This allows Auriga to participate directly in developing Tizen and its implementation on end devices and act as an expert in a completely new area of mobile systems.
Auriga’s Chief Technology Officer, Evgeny Semenov, commented on the conference’s news:
In today’s world, technologies are born really fast but can quit the scene even faster. But I believe that Tizen is destined to stay in this world longer than its predecessors. Now, this operating system basically has all the components of success: reputed developers and investors, such as Intel and Samsung; a good idea of how it should develop; an entire ecosystem as a target (not just separate market segments); and development architecture open to thousands of talented engineers. Auriga will definitely keep working on expanding our current Tizen expertise, and we will be happy to provide development, maintenance, porting, and cross-platform support services to all of our customers.
