Samsung Electronics announced at its developer conference this week that it’s opening up its Tizen TV operating system for Smart TVs to third-party manufacturers.
In other words, TV brands besides Samsung will now have the option to use the Tizen TV platform with their products, as an alternative to options such as Android TV and Roku TV.
“With Tizen, consumers can stream content from hundreds of apps,” Sang Kim, Global Head of Smart TV Business Development at Samsung, said during a keynote at the event. “For the first time we’re going to make the Tizen TV OS available to other manufacturers.”
Kim reckons there should be plenty of companies willing to give Tizen TV OS a go, noting that over 100 million TVs in the world are already capable of supporting the platform. The company refused to be drawn on any potential partners at this stage, however, but the likes of Hisense and TCL would certainly seem to be possibilities as most of their current TVs run either Android or Roku.
Samsung would of course benefit from having different kinds of TVs run its OS, as it means more users for its apps, and also Bixby, its AI-powered personal assistant.
TV makers might be willing to give Tizen TV a try because it provides access to the Samsung TV Plus platform, which has tons of free content and integrates with several well-known over-the-top cable providers. Tizen OS also has a large library of apps to choose from.
Tizen was originally a variation of Linux, much like Android was, before Samsung merged the code with its Bada platform to create an operating system for all manner of devices, including wearables, smartphones, cameras and TVs. Tizen is based on open source technology but many of its key parts are written in proprietary Samsung code, which means the Korean firm effectively owns it.
It’s not clear how long it would take third-party manufacturers to integrate Tizen TV with their hardware should they decide to use it. Still, there’s probably not a whole lot of work involved, which gives us confidence we could start seeing some new TVs besides Samsung models running Tizen by the time the next Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in January.
