After months of endless delays Samsung’s highly anticipated Tizen smartphone was formally unveiled last month. The company’s lead man on the Tizen project, J.D. Choi, unveiled the Samsung Z last month and said that it would first go on sale in Russia in the third quarter of this year. The release was supposed to take place at yesterday’s event for Tizen developers in Moscow but just days earlier Samsung once again delayed the release.
In a statement yesterday Samsung only said that its Tizen smartphone will be released in the Russian market later, “when we can offer our users a fullest portfolio of applications.” The company is undoubtedly vague about the release timeframe and it’s unclear exactly when the Samsung Z will finally hit the market.
Developers at the Moscow event appeared to take the news of yet another delay with stoicism. Many speculated whether Samsung had simply pushed back the release because it didn’t have enough apps to fill the Tizen store by the time the product hit shelves.
However it doesn’t look like developers are losing hope. With Tizen the get the chance to be at the top of a half empty store, since Samsung’s homegrown platform isn’t attracting developers in monumental numbers like iOS or Android. There’s strong potential there particularly for smaller developers but they’ll only be able to get something out of it when people in the market actually have the devices that can run Tizen apps.
