What is Tizen? And how will it compare/compete with Android and iOS?

Samsung’s newest OS, Tizen, is a Linux-based open-source platform meant for multiple systems. The operating system, Tinzen 2.0 Magnolia, is designed to be scalable for smartphones, smart appliances, televisions and in-car systems. Tizen’s move to Samsung devices will be slow, though.

“We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions,” Samsung said in an email to Bloomberg.

The release of Tizen is a bold move for Samsung, and might be just the thing the phone manufacturer needs to emerge as a third big player in the mobile world, behind Apple and Google. Handling the software for its hardware has given Apple enormous power over its products, and can easily be cited as a key to its success. If Tizen is a robust enough OS, Samsung could potentially rely on its own software, no longer depending on Android.

“The Tizen was born as Samsung hoped to lighten its growing dependence on Google on concerns that its top position in the smartphone market may weaken following the Google-Motorola tie-up,” Byun Han Joon, an analyst at KB Investment and Securities in Seoul, South Korea, told Bloomberg.

Apple Insider mentions it’s believed the release of Tizen 2.0 Magnolia is a response to Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility in March 2012. This move combined Samsung’s OS provider and a major hardware competitor into one, resulting in a potentially vulnerable spot for the company. Rolling out its own OS serves as a good insurance policy for Samsung, ensuring that it can fall back on Tizen in case Google becomes less generous with its Android OS.

An SDK release version of Tizen can be found on its website.