Samsung delays Tizen

tizen-(1)Samsung’s plans to get its Tizen phone into the shops have been delayed, with the initial planned third quarter launch in Russia abandoned.

The Korean electronics maker had been hoping that Tizen would cut its dependency on Android.

The phone was supposed to be tried out in Russia sometime in the third quarter, but Samsung said it needed more time to enhance the “Tizen ecosystem.”

This comes as no real surprise as there had been rumblings at a recent Tizen developer’ conference two weeks ago, but this was put down to a dodgy fish supper.

Samsung did not say exactly what was wrong with Tizen but it would appear to be concerns about the availability of apps and related services that are needed to make the product sell.

Network operators NTT DoCoMo and France’s Orange pulled out of promotional campaigns launching the Tizen phone because of a lack of Apps.

Samsung has already launched Tizen smartwatches and cameras, but wants to get it into smartphones so that it has greater control over its phones operating system. Its license agreement with Google restricts its freedom to make more than cosmetic changes to the Android system.