Samsung is the world’s top Android smartphone vendor by a staggering margin. Aside from LG, which managed a small $20 million profit from its mobile division last quarter, no other global Android vendor can figure out how to make money selling Android phones. Meanwhile, Samsung posted a $6 billion profit on $47.6 billion in sales in the third quarter, thanks largely to record smartphone shipments and a massive marketing budget. Even as industry watchers turn sour on Apple, Samsung is seen steamrolling into 2013 and its stock is up nearly 50% on the year while Apple (AAPL) shares continue to fall from a record high hit in September. As unstoppable as Samsung appears right now, one key question remains: Is Samsung driving Android’s success or is Android driving Samsung’s success? Starting in 2013, we may finally begin to find out.

Earlier this year, BGR wrote about Samsung’s effort to look beyond Android. Even with its own UI and application suite — and even with its own content services — Samsung will always rely on Google (GOOG) if it continues to base its devices on Google’s latest Android builds.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means Samsung will never truly control the end-to-end experience on its products. It also means Samsung will never truly own its smartphones and tablets. Instead, Samsung’s devices will deliver an experience that is an amalgamation of Google’s vision and its own.

But there are alternative options. One example is the path Amazon (AMZN) has taken. Amazon let Google do the grunt work and then took its open-source Android OS and built its own software and service layer on top. Kindle Fire users don’t sit around waiting for Android updates — many of them don’t even know they’re using an Android-powered tablet.
Samsung could do the same thing, but there is a great deal of prep work that would need to be done first. Amazon’s efforts were so successful (depending on your measure of success) because the company already had a massive ecosystem in place before it even launched its first device. Streaming movies and TV shows, eBooks, retail shopping and a stocked application store were all available on the Kindle Fire from day one.

Samsung doesn’t have this luxury. Yet.

Samsung could also take ownership of a new OS, and Tizen may or may not end up being that OS. Samsung is co-developing the new Linux-based mobile platform with Intel (INTC) and others, and a new rumor from Japan’s The Daily Yomiuri suggests Samsung plans to launch its first Tizen phone in 2013. “Samsung will probably begin selling the [Tizen] smartphones next year and they are likely to be released in Japan and other countries at around the same time,” the site’s sources claim.

This will be a slow process. If Samsung follows the same path it took with Bada, Samsung’s earlier Linux-based OS that was folded into the Tizen project, things will start out slow as Samsung launches regional devices that are restricted to a few Eastern markets. Testing the waters before dumping serious marketing dollars into the project isn’t a bad idea, especially considering the battle at the bottom of the smartphone OS food chain that will already be taking place in 2013.

But one thing is clear: Samsung is looking to broaden its strategy and move beyond a point where it relies entirely on another company for its smartphone software.

This article was originally published by BGR

It would be exceptionally stupid on Samsung's part to move away from Android.

But one thing is clear: Samsung is looking to broaden its strategy and move beyond a point where it relies entirely on another company for its smartphone software.

And so it begins...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-575617 ... -for-2013/

This is a pretty risky move by Samsung. They've ridden Android to huge sales numbers recently.

The low market share of Windows Phone might be explained by a study by Bernstein Research that concluded that consumers don’t want Windows Phones. The research points out: "The lack of consumer interest for Windows-based phones has been very consistent in marketing surveys we have carried out across the globe over the last several years." and that "The situation of Windows in mobile phones is now very unlikely to revert." This view stems from the idea that the current ecosystems hold too much of the market for the windows phone to get noticed in the proverbial popularity contest.

About
Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and silicon suppliers for multiple device categories such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, and smart TVs. Tizen offers an innovative operating system, applications, and a user experience that consumers can take from device to device.

The Tizen project resides within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Group. The Technical Steering Group is the primary decision-making body for the open source project, with a focus on platform development and delivery, along with the formation of working groups to support device verticals.

The Tizen Association has been formed to guide the industry role of Tizen, including gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and overall industry marketing and education.

Tizen provides a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5. With HTML5's robust capabilities and cross platform flexibility, it is rapidly becoming the preferred development environment for mobile apps and services. The Tizen SDK and API allow developers to use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run across multiple device segments.

Tizen Workgroup

Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and silicon suppliers for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more. Tizen offers an innovative operating system, applications, and a user experience that consumers can take from device to device.

The Tizen project resides within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Group. The Technical Steering Group is the primary decision-making body for the open source project, with a focus on platform development and delivery, along with the formation of working groups to support device verticals.

Tizen provides a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5 and Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). With HTML5's robust capabilities and cross platform flexibility, it is rapidly becoming the preferred development environment for mobile apps and services. The Tizen SDK and API allows developers to use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run across multiple device segments, including smartphone, tablet, smart TV, in-vehicle infotainment, and netbook.

I remember when Android was 'open'

This release includes many new features and improvements over Tizen 1.0 released in April, and Tizen 2.0 alpha in September, 2012. As a Tizen 2.0 developer, you will find strong HTML5/W3C APIs and a new native framework. Highlights of this release include:

- Enhanced Web framework that provides state-of-the-art HTML5/W3C API support
- Web UI framework, including full-screen and multi-window support
- Additional Tizen device APIs, such as Bluetooth and NFC support, and access to the device’s calendar, call history, and messaging subsystems
- Web Runtime framework supporting new configuration elements for specifying the required features and privileges, and providing the basic runtime environment for NPRuntime plugins
- Native framework supporting full-featured application development and providing a variety of features such as background applications, IP Push, and TTS (Text-To-Speech)
- Core and native reference applications including Calendar, Contacts, Gallery, Phone, Settings, and Video Player
- Enhanced Web IDE providing WYSIWYG design environment, Chrome-based JavaScript inspector, and JavaScript log viewer
- Native IDE providing a project wizard, WYSIWYG design environment, unit test tool, and dynamic analyzer