It was my brother’s first month salary and he promised to buy me something. I was given the option to choose what I wanted. I, for long, had an idea to get a decent tablet that could fit in my budget. And for the past two days, I’ve been digging a lot of information about tablets and that’s how I came to know of the Tizen Mobile Operating System.
I still remember the incredulous gasp I was posing in front of my monitor when I was reading about Tizen. Both the Firefox OS (or Boot2Gecko as it was known earlier) and the Tizen seemed strikingly similar –They claimed themselves open source operating systems that ran on Mobile computing devices and were based on HTML5. “So then, what essentially is the difference?” – I was asking myself. And thus goes the story below.
I’m sorry Tizen, but who are you?
“If Motorola and Samsung can make tablets, why can’t I?” Intel claimed and started the Moblin Project in 2007. Their intention was to make a custom operating system that could run on its Atom processor series of Notebooks and other cheap devices. Moblin was based on Linux, light-weight and the project was initiated with the belief that it would provide a footing for Intel to enter the smartphone market.
Around the same time, Nokia had been building its versions of Mobile operating system – Maemo. As a part of their strategic move, both the companies announced during the 2010 Mobile World Congress that they are planning to discontinue their operating system projects in forming the Meego Project – A linux distribution that could run majorly on mobile devices and notebook PCs.
And both Intel and Nokia tried ways to bring out Meego to their respective device territories. If you didn’t know, Nokia’s N9 (and N900 can) run on Meego. Intel had partnered with Acer, Fujitsu and Samsung to bring out its series of Notebooks that can work with Meego. Everything seemed fine. Things were looking good for both Nokia and Intel until one fine day when Meego team had announced that they will be discontinuing the current project and work towards forming a new one by the name Tizen. The motives of Tizen were almost the same as that of Meego. Then what’s the point in forming a new one?
There are two ways, this question might be answered. Technically, “the future belongs to HTML5 applications”, Meego Team announced. Nearly everything out there can run in the Web, they said and that shifting focus more on HTML5 and Web based applications is what seemed like a wise thing to do. Fair enough! Are you not convinced?
But things are much complicated than what they actually look like. The main motive behind the formation of Meego was to run Atom Processor Series on Notebooks and PCs and Intel was already thinking that Microsoft was not so-very-supportive of it. Nokia on the other hand was desperately trying to grab a hold in the smartphone market already flooded with higher end devices running iOS and Android. All they wanted was a big break. And thus had come the decision that they would be partnering with Microsoft in ditching the good old Symbian and the Meego. The company had considered Meego a flop episode as it failed to attract consumers despite boasting an intuitive design and UI. But, a foe’s friend can never be your friend? Can he? And certainly an angered Meego (Intel don’t you think? The person in charge of the press release – Imad, is an Intel employee) had announced that they would be forming a new project with Intel and Samsung leading the forefront – a more diplomatic way of kicking Nokia out of the alliance.
Tizen was born!
How good is the Tizen?
Tizen is an Open Source, standards based platform that is supported by device manufacturers like Samsung, Intel (of course, both!) and carriers like Sprint Nextel. The project resides within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Committee – to make decisions critical to the success of the project. Tizen Association on the other hand is responsible for marketing, device and specifics identification in requirements – a kind of media outreach. Governance style of the entire system looks very promising.
They’ve already released the v1.0 of their OS codenamed Larkspur that already has features like Wifi, NFCs, 4G support. Samsung’s Bada OS has been incorporated inside the Tizen. I’m not sure what good the Bada OS – a relatively less popular and a not-so-great platform, will to do the future of Tizen, apart from the fact that Tizen shall run Bada Apps too. Well, no one would actually jump high about the fact. Who bothers about merging an OS that many have not even heard about?
But Samsung enjoys every little move about this whole game. It already is the primary smartphone manufacturer for Google’s Android, is in plans to release a lot more number of Windows Phones soon and has its own Tizen project in the blocks.
Tizen – Firefox OS: The Showdown!
That brings us to the first question we raised back in the 1st para. Can Tizen really beat the Firefox OS? Mozilla has already been garnering support all over for its efforts in making Open APIs for literally everything that runs in a smartphone. Critics have lauded its developer version that was showcased during this year’s Mobile World Congress.
So, what can really is the difference between the two?
Sounds like public involvement in the Tizen’s Team is not really ‘Open’. It comes only with an invite. This is not the case with Firefox OS however. Any person, who finds the project interesting, might join the project. Understand that Open Source doesn’t really mean Open Development and this case just proves the point.
Open Source also doesn’t mean people are allowed to take part in developing the code. This is much like the Google’s Android SDK where they make it and then release it to the public.
Tizen claims itself that it runs only on HTML5. But, it still seems to contain certain applications that run on Qt. This is not the case with Firefox OS however, that runs purely on Web Technologies like CSS and JS apart from HTML5.
The very HTML5 over which the Tizen runs is not entirely web integrated. The code functionality is written on HTML5 and Javascript. This is also seems to be the case with Firefox OS. But the applications written for Tizen shall run only on Tizen. This is not a platform-independent app development as against to Mozilla that provides framework to run it anywhere with just web being the requirement.
Well, my point is…
There are things upon which we need to shed light before considering one good or bad. No one’s to blame. It is the way the world works. Corporate politics. For amateurs, it is hard to learn. But, we need to understand that for Tizen or Mozilla to succeed, they need to bring in a lot more things than they’ve just shown us. Mozilla has fame and a good name. Tizen has a good developer architecture and backing of industry leaders with the likes of Intel and Samsung. Although there are far more interesting things happening for us to notice in the arena of Tech world, this one which Mozilla and Tizen are playing against will be as interesting as it gets for both of them seem to be based on same principles and motives. For one to win, the other must go down. What will happen? Sure, expect a cracker !