Samsung used the annual Tizen Developer Conference to talk up the potential of the platform “for the IoT era”, with less emphasis placed on its position in the mobile space.

“Since launching, Tizen has become the OS for nearly all of Samsung’s products, and with its record of sales growth, proven itself as the most successful Linux-based embedded OS in the world. Among open collaborations, and as we enter the IoT era, we expect Tizen will open new opportunities for the future of IoT,” said Hyogun Lee, chair of the Tizen Technical Steering Group (pictured).

While Samsung maintains a position for Tizen in the mobile device market – indeed it debuted its latest smartphone using the platform this week – it is something of a lukewarm commitment. The vendor offers a single device running the platform in this portfolio at any time, and this is targeted at the entry-level in emerging markets.

However, the company pushed the platform harder in areas including smart TVs and wearables.

Samsung said key changes in Tizen 4.0: “are optimisations made on the platform for IoT developers to enable rapid creation and commercialisation of various applications”. It will offer an environment: “that can be refined according to the characteristics of various devices by subdividing functional modules”.

App development boost
A Tizen Project collaboration with Microsoft will make it easier for developers to develop more Tizen applications with popular programming languages. The Microsoft .Net and Xamarin UI framework have been introduced to Tizen, so C# language-based applications can be developed in the Visual Studio environment.

To boost its Tizen IoT efforts, Samsung said it plans to work with chip makers Samsung Artik and Broadlink in China; smart home device manufacturer Commax in South Korea; and location-based service provider Glympse in the US.

At Tizen Developer Conference, Samsung unveiled its Artik 053 module, a lightweight IoT chipset with integrated real time processing using Tizen RT for the first time.

While Samsung is obviously the big driver in the Tizen ecosystem, it said: “in addition to software developers, more than 1,000 service/content partners, device manufacturers and others engaged in the Tizen ecosystem will be participating at the conference”.