When Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo indefinitely delayed its plans to release a Tizen smartphone on the same day it was supposed to launch in January, our idealistic vision of a new Samsung, free from the Android OS began to fade away. If Tizen never takes off, we might look back at that moment as the crushing blow, but as The Wall Street Journal reports, there were plenty of complications before the NTT DoCoMo incident that threatened to curb the rise of Tizen before it could ever launch.
All over the world, carriers have toyed with the idea of welcoming Samsung’s new platform into the fold, only to abandon Tizen for greener pastures before releasing a product. Sprint joined the Tizen Association in 2012, but left last year before anything came of the partnership. Spanish carrier Telefónica abandoned the Samsung spin-off as well and started releasing Firefox OS smartphones in 2013 instead. French carrier Orange, still a member of the Association, says it has no plans to launch a Tizen smartphone anytime soon.
Samsung will move forward despite the countless setbacks, with plans to reveal the first commercial Tizen products at Mobile World Congress later this month, but without the support of even minor carriers, Tizen won’t have the opportunity to make an impact.
