The Tizen operating system for phones and tablets has faced a series of delays, and now that one of Tizen’s biggest backers has agreed to share intellectual property with Google, you might be wondering if Tizen has much of a future.
While it’s tough to answer that question, there are 15 more companies that seem to think there’s some value to joining the Tizen Association, joining the three dozen existing members.
New members include Chinese search and software company Baidu, wireless carriers Sprint and SoftBank Mobile, phone maker ZTE, and game developer Gamevil, just to name a few.
They join existing companies including Samsung, Intel, Huawei, and Vodafone.
While it could be a while before we start to see phones or tablets shipping with Tizen software, you can already by a Samsung camera powered by Tizen. Several companies are also expected to show off Tizen devices at Mobile World Congress later this month, although they probably won’t hit the streets for a while.
Tizen is a Linux-based operating system designed to compete with Android, iOS, and other mobile software. Development of the operating system began after key industry players decided to kill its predecessor, MeeGo. Tizen differs from MeeGo in its emphasis on HTML5 applications.
Baidu’s support is huge, Tizen might be a factor after all.
Just join with firefox.