Samsung Electronics intends to focus Tizen development efforts on opportunities in the Internet of Things and wearables, at least based on the keynote speakers and a partial agenda set for a developer conference taking place later this month in Bangalore, India. The conference comes amid rumors of a new Tizen-based smartphone Samsung is said to be prepping for later this year.
The Tizen Developer Summit 2015 Bengaluru is set to take place July 30 and 31 and its location is no coincidence. Samsung said that developers in India have accounted for nearly 50 percent of the applications in the Tizen Store.
Samsung remains the staunchest supporter of Tizen among hardware OEMs. Other Tizen supporters include Intel, Huawei, ZTE, Orange and Vodafone. Until now, Samsung's Tizen phones have competed with entry-level Android and Windows phones, and Tizen gives Samsung another option in terms of operating systems.
Tech sessions at the conference will be divided into four tracks: "Mobile & Platform," "TV, IoT, Wearable," "Biz & Panel" and "Workshop." During one session, Samsung said it will "introduce Tizen features and concepts of device profiles including smartphones, smart TVs, wearables, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and IoT in the near future."
Additionally, there will be a session on wearables. The Samsung Gear smart watch runs on Tizen, and Samsung said it will provide an overview on "the major features and capabilities that are available on Tizen devices" and on how to develop apps for the Gear.
Another session will go over the APIs "introduced by IoTivity's base framework and the common services for group management of things and soft sensor management. Developers will learn how to write plugins to connect devices built on OIC (Open Interconnect Consortium) standards to communicate with legacy devices using Protocol Manager Service."
One of the keynote speakers at the event will be Curtis Sasaki, vice president of ecosystems and IoT general manager for Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC). Samsung said he will speak about market opportunities for IoT and the need for open platforms, including Tizen and Samsung's Artik platform for connected devices.
Other keynote speakers include Aloknath De, CTO and vice president of the Samsung R&D Institute India – Bangalore, who will speak about the current Tizen device and app market. Sanjeev Kashyap, CTO and head of the Satellite Network Group at Bharti Telemedia, will talk about growth and change in Indian digital TV viewership patterns, the unique app demands of the Samsung Smart TV and plans for upcoming applications on the Tizen platform. And Naveen Tewari, the founder of InMobi, will talk about the evolution of mobile monetization and how it will impact Tizen developers.
While Samsung is clearly focusing Tizen development efforts on IoT, smart TVs and wearables, the company is apparently not giving up on Tizen smartphones. Reuters reported last week that Samsung plans to launch more Tizen handsets later this year, according to an unnamed source. The report said Samsung will release several Tizen smartphones at varying price points. Samsung declined to comment, according to Reuters.
According to the blog SamMobile, the next Tizen phone Samsung will roll out will be called the Z3, and it will sport the Tizen 2.4 operating system, a 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, a 1.3 GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7730S processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of internal storage space. Those specs would place it in a higher tier than the entry-level Z1, Samsung's first and only Tizen smartphone. Samsung said in late June it had sold 1 million Z1 smartphones since its launch in January. The Z1 was the best-selling smartphone in Bangladesh in the first quarter, according to a May report from researcher Counterpoint Research.
For more:
- see this Samsung post
- see this SamMobile article
- see this Reuters article
- see this Samsung statement
- see this Economic Times article
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