a) Tizen is not just an operating system for smart phones and tablets. From tizen.org: "Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and silicon suppliers for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more."
b) In January Forbes reported "Samsung Merging Its Bada OS With Intel-Backed Tizen Project". This was later denied by Samsung, saying that they were primarily working with Intel to get Bada applications to run on Tizen.
This would allow Samsung to use a unified platform for e.g. their TV sets, feature phones and smart phones. The low end phones would stick with Bada, which has more moderate system requirements than Android or Tizen, but provide Bada developers with the option to run their apps on smart phones as well and not being limited to just Samsung devices. Tizen for TVs would not be bound by the restrictions Google has introduced with Android 4, therefore allowing Samsung to tweak it any way they want.
All these are good reasons to invest in Tizen/Linux and more a platform consolidation move than the attempt to establish another platform. Looks like a smart move to me.
I think Samsung is feeling a little left out these days. Nokia has the inside track with Microsoft. Motorola has the inside track with Google(but who knows if they will be able to put it to good use). Samsung is looking for something to call their own.
And what can Linux do that Android could not against iOS? This isn't a play against Apple. Tizen isn't going to take share away from iOS, it's only going to take share away from Android...if it does even that. The only way to sell Linux is to essentially hide it like Google does.
oh crap. this constant AI "Apple vs. X" meme for whatever happens is just - well, i don't know whether to call it conceit or paranoia. you know, sometimes things just really aren't about Apple at all. yes, there is more to the tech world than just Apple.
the single party most obviously threatened, if any, by Samsung's growing interest in Linux would be - of course - Google! duh! like maybe Samsung is dead serious, you know, about developing its own Linux-based OS as an ALTERNATIVE TO DEPENDING ON ANDROID! gee, what a new idea (not). like there is only about a dozen good reasons ... let's start with Motorola, and then the lawsuits, and who controls the monetized ecosystem, and well ... add you own.
... All these are good reasons to invest in Tizen/Linux and more a platform consolidation move than the attempt to establish another platform. Looks like a smart move to me.
Right. Because 20 years of Linux's absolute failure on the desktop will obviously lead to success in mobile?
This fits Einstein's definition of insanity rather well.
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Uh oh. So now Samsung is betting not only with Windows and Android, but with their own flavor of Linux? I they see the writing on the wall. This might Samsung's only way to go after to iOS because they probably know that Google may not have a very good road map and it is a fragmented platform and that Windows won't be anything that will go against iOS, so they develop their own OS. Talk about confusing everyone.
This way they have THREE ecosystems to build to support their phones, since there doesn't yet exist ONE that works on the all the screen sizes that Samsung alone has pushed out the door.
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Actually its not the kernel or the APIs layered on top, just like it's not the number of cores or RAM or the clock speed. It's the ecosystem the device swims in. The more Samsung fractures their effort over multiple OSs and screen sizes, the harder it will be to build an ecosystem to make their crap more attractive. In addition nothing they make now is designed to work together. The best thing they have going is that Apple only releases ONE model of phone and ONE model of tablet per year, while the Samsung factory shits out a new something-or-other every month. Oh look! A new Samsung shiney!
Yep! Why don't we bring back DOS and yeah what about the WebOS, Maybe Symbian too! Samsung is just lost! Sometime you just wonder how some execs makes decisions.
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Mach and FreeBSD are two different beasts. If they want to use Mach from the GPL Project, best of luck to them. The hurd is a real turd.
FreeBSD makes sense, but then they will be moving more to a C/C++ Model than the OpenJDK with all the Oracle issues currently being hashed out in the courts with Android's JVM.
I agree the Linux ABI instability will continue to be an ongoing issue and with Linux already absorbing more than $10 Billion in development it is clear that $500 Million more won't convince Linus and his Patent control of Linux to finally produce a stable ABI.
Moving to FreeBSD or a derivative of it that will work on Embedded Systems will also have the advantage of LLVM/Clang 3.x ready to go with Version 10 and newer, not to mention working on ARM.
To paraphrase Steve Jobs, Samsung doesn't have to lose for Apple to win.
I suspect that Tizen may be a perfect match for the Galaxy S3 -- designed by lawyers to avoid patent litigation.
Imagine that Samsung accelerates the development of Tizen and makes it available to other handset manufacturers for free. Could there follow a massive abandonment of Android by Asian handset makers (especially China) who might perceive Tizen as an Asian OS? In a "worst case" situation, this happens, Nokia sticks with Windows Phone, and Android ends up only on Motoroola. Probably not but its a thought.
While it is too early to deduce that demand for Google's OS is waning, it seems that Samsung is hedging its bets and will be investing more heavily in the research and development of Tizen.
Google's only motivation for dumping Android onto the market is ad revenue. That's it.
Samsung's knows this. They also know that they are too big to simply be another one of Google's many generic iPhone clone-making partners. Especially since Google can and will make Motorola their hardware darling. One $12.5 billion hardware beehatch to rule them all. No doubt Samsung has made requests to Google for Android enhancements. And no doubt Google has refused, telling Samsung and the Fandroids of the world "Just wait until the next release. You're gonna love it. Trust us. (Suckerrrrrrs.)"
So Samsung could fork their own proprietary version of Android to have more control over their own destiny. And while they're at it, they could cut out Google's spam machine and whatever user data snooping code that Google has Trojaned Android with. But that's a lot of work. Why not start with a clean slate?
Enter Tizen. Samsung can, appropriately, be a big fish in a small but growing pond. They can be the Big Man on Campus in the Linux Foundation with their half-mil-a-year membership fee. They can call some or all of the shots, and optimize Tizen for their specific proprietary hardware. Embrace and extend the crap out of Tizen's open standards-based code. The better to open up a bigger advantage over all those other struggling Android hardware partners who are still stuck with whatever Google gives them. Whenever they want to give it to them. Even if it makes no sense (e.g. releasing Jellybean 5.0 when Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 has barely more than 7% of the Android installed base. Disastrous. "Here ya go, suckerrrrs. Run this on your iPhone clones.")
That's probably the paradisical future Samsung envisions. The harsh reality is that there is no Tizen ecosystem, and almost certainly no forward migration path for users who actually bought Android apps on their current Samsung phones. They're building it all from scratch. Five years late to the iPhone party.
Oh, and there's one more little detail. iPad. An iPad clone doth not live by its OS alone. It takes a mature, fully-envisioned, battle-hardened, polished user experience. Good luck with the Tizen experience there, Samsung. (And have fun fending off Apple in the TV space too.)
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiker275
It's not $500 BILLION.... it's only a half trillion.
Since Android uses the Linux kernel this could be a move by Samsung to have a greater say how Android develops.
a) Tizen is not just an operating system for smart phones and tablets. From tizen.org: "Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and silicon suppliers for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more."
b) In January Forbes reported "Samsung Merging Its Bada OS With Intel-Backed Tizen Project". This was later denied by Samsung, saying that they were primarily working with Intel to get Bada applications to run on Tizen.
This would allow Samsung to use a unified platform for e.g. their TV sets, feature phones and smart phones. The low end phones would stick with Bada, which has more moderate system requirements than Android or Tizen, but provide Bada developers with the option to run their apps on smart phones as well and not being limited to just Samsung devices. Tizen for TVs would not be bound by the restrictions Google has introduced with Android 4, therefore allowing Samsung to tweak it any way they want.
All these are good reasons to invest in Tizen/Linux and more a platform consolidation move than the attempt to establish another platform. Looks like a smart move to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dlux
I think Dr. Evil was providing the information to the author. He sometimes screws up like that.
DO NOT!
At least throw me a frickin' bone people...
I think Samsung is feeling a little left out these days. Nokia has the inside track with Microsoft. Motorola has the inside track with Google(but who knows if they will be able to put it to good use). Samsung is looking for something to call their own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
They could just start with FreeBSD and Mach...
And what can Linux do that Android could not against iOS? This isn't a play against Apple. Tizen isn't going to take share away from iOS, it's only going to take share away from Android...if it does even that. The only way to sell Linux is to essentially hide it like Google does.
Good lord, what a colossal waste of money.
Android is Linux with Java.
oh crap. this constant AI "Apple vs. X" meme for whatever happens is just - well, i don't know whether to call it conceit or paranoia. you know, sometimes things just really aren't about Apple at all. yes, there is more to the tech world than just Apple.
the single party most obviously threatened, if any, by Samsung's growing interest in Linux would be - of course - Google! duh! like maybe Samsung is dead serious, you know, about developing its own Linux-based OS as an ALTERNATIVE TO DEPENDING ON ANDROID! gee, what a new idea (not). like there is only about a dozen good reasons ... let's start with Motorola, and then the lawsuits, and who controls the monetized ecosystem, and well ... add you own.
AI, you need some therapy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Also, AI made a major mistake in the title... It's 1/2 million dollars, NOT $500 MILLION!
Typical Dr. Evil mistake...
Quote:
Originally Posted by faduci
... All these are good reasons to invest in Tizen/Linux and more a platform consolidation move than the attempt to establish another platform. Looks like a smart move to me.
Right. Because 20 years of Linux's absolute failure on the desktop will obviously lead to success in mobile?
This fits Einstein's definition of insanity rather well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Android is Linux with Java.
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Looks like Samsung is going to use every tool and way possible to dethrone Apple. Its really a product war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
Uh oh. So now Samsung is betting not only with Windows and Android, but with their own flavor of Linux? I they see the writing on the wall. This might Samsung's only way to go after to iOS because they probably know that Google may not have a very good road map and it is a fragmented platform and that Windows won't be anything that will go against iOS, so they develop their own OS. Talk about confusing everyone.
This way they have THREE ecosystems to build to support their phones, since there doesn't yet exist ONE that works on the all the screen sizes that Samsung alone has pushed out the door.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Actually its not the kernel or the APIs layered on top, just like it's not the number of cores or RAM or the clock speed. It's the ecosystem the device swims in. The more Samsung fractures their effort over multiple OSs and screen sizes, the harder it will be to build an ecosystem to make their crap more attractive. In addition nothing they make now is designed to work together. The best thing they have going is that Apple only releases ONE model of phone and ONE model of tablet per year, while the Samsung factory shits out a new something-or-other every month. Oh look! A new Samsung shiney!
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiker275
It's not $500 BILLION.... it's only a half trillion.
Plus they get a free cheeseburger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
Yes, and I pointed out that Google hides that is linux by assiduously avoiding mentioning it in their product literature.
The thing is that the kernel isn't as important as the APIs layered on top of it. Android's is so-so. iOS is much better. Bada I've never looked at. Most FOSS frameworks tend to suck suffering from lack of documentation or excessive changes and instability from version to version because the devs felt like it. Even linux which lacks a stable ABI.
The kicker though is that if they want to do deep Bada integration with the kernel they have to release the results to everyone under GPL. There's no real competitive advantage there. Hence the comment about Mach and FreeBSD.
Mach and FreeBSD are two different beasts. If they want to use Mach from the GPL Project, best of luck to them. The hurd is a real turd.
FreeBSD makes sense, but then they will be moving more to a C/C++ Model than the OpenJDK with all the Oracle issues currently being hashed out in the courts with Android's JVM.
I agree the Linux ABI instability will continue to be an ongoing issue and with Linux already absorbing more than $10 Billion in development it is clear that $500 Million more won't convince Linus and his Patent control of Linux to finally produce a stable ABI.
Moving to FreeBSD or a derivative of it that will work on Embedded Systems will also have the advantage of LLVM/Clang 3.x ready to go with Version 10 and newer, not to mention working on ARM.
Couple of points I'd like to make…
To paraphrase Steve Jobs, Samsung doesn't have to lose for Apple to win.
I suspect that Tizen may be a perfect match for the Galaxy S3 -- designed by lawyers to avoid patent litigation.
Imagine that Samsung accelerates the development of Tizen and makes it available to other handset manufacturers for free. Could there follow a massive abandonment of Android by Asian handset makers (especially China) who might perceive Tizen as an Asian OS? In a "worst case" situation, this happens, Nokia sticks with Windows Phone, and Android ends up only on Motoroola. Probably not but its a thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
While it is too early to deduce that demand for Google's OS is waning, it seems that Samsung is hedging its bets and will be investing more heavily in the research and development of Tizen.
Google's only motivation for dumping Android onto the market is ad revenue. That's it.
Samsung's knows this. They also know that they are too big to simply be another one of Google's many generic iPhone clone-making partners. Especially since Google can and will make Motorola their hardware darling. One $12.5 billion hardware beehatch to rule them all. No doubt Samsung has made requests to Google for Android enhancements. And no doubt Google has refused, telling Samsung and the Fandroids of the world "Just wait until the next release. You're gonna love it. Trust us. (Suckerrrrrrs.)"
So Samsung could fork their own proprietary version of Android to have more control over their own destiny. And while they're at it, they could cut out Google's spam machine and whatever user data snooping code that Google has Trojaned Android with. But that's a lot of work. Why not start with a clean slate?
Enter Tizen. Samsung can, appropriately, be a big fish in a small but growing pond. They can be the Big Man on Campus in the Linux Foundation with their half-mil-a-year membership fee. They can call some or all of the shots, and optimize Tizen for their specific proprietary hardware. Embrace and extend the crap out of Tizen's open standards-based code. The better to open up a bigger advantage over all those other struggling Android hardware partners who are still stuck with whatever Google gives them. Whenever they want to give it to them. Even if it makes no sense (e.g. releasing Jellybean 5.0 when Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 has barely more than 7% of the Android installed base. Disastrous. "Here ya go, suckerrrrs. Run this on your iPhone clones.")
That's probably the paradisical future Samsung envisions. The harsh reality is that there is no Tizen ecosystem, and almost certainly no forward migration path for users who actually bought Android apps on their current Samsung phones. They're building it all from scratch. Five years late to the iPhone party.
Oh, and there's one more little detail. iPad. An iPad clone doth not live by its OS alone. It takes a mature, fully-envisioned, battle-hardened, polished user experience. Good luck with the Tizen experience there, Samsung. (And have fun fending off Apple in the TV space too.)