Some Thoughts about Samsung and their Partnership with Google

[Irishman]

So, is Samsung testing the waters for offering Tizen-based smartphones? Yes.

Check this out - http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/26/tizen-developer-phone-hands-on/

Samsung has been more than willing to make changes to the stock Android OS if they feel it's in their interest. Touchwiz is just the most obvious of this, but of course, S-Pen and S-Beam are two other ideas.

According to this Wall Street Journal report, Google is concerned about Samsung's dominance among the Android OEMs - http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323699704578324220017879796.html?mg=reno64-wsj

The new Samsung Wallet - which pretty much mirrors Apple's Passbook for functionality, displaying loyalty cards, not using NFC, oddly enough - bypassing Google Wallet. http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/27/4035064/samsung-wallet-app-apple-passbook-features

They've gone so far as to release an API for it, so they're certainly about going up against Apple - http://developer.samsung.com/samsung-wallet-api

But why not just use Google Wallet? Why do their own thing? Obviously, it's for the revenue, but why fork Android by all these services and features that differ just enough from what's offered in stock Android so as to make them proprietary? http://gizmodo.com/5987237/samsung-wallet-is-apples-passbook-on-android

If you take Samsung out of the picture, what does the Android OEM ecosystem look like? HTC? LG? What's captured the market's imagination? Google owns Motorola, but they're not making new phones that really show advantages of that acquisition - yet (granted, it's only been 9 months). I mean, like the guys on the Verge podcast said - "Galaxy" is what "Droid" used to be, as far as the public awareness goes, and THAT should worry Google.

As far as Google knows, Samsung's using Android to learn in the Smartphone space, and in 6 months to a year's time, Samsung could ditch Android and hitch its wagon to Tizen.

 

[Hail Caesar]

Samsung will continue to use 3rd party OSs but they will start to put their Tizen on their high end hardware.

 

[DanteMann]

It's all business. Samsung did hardware and Google did software. Google bought Motorola and will no doubt do hardware now, so Samsung has no choice but to do Software. Even if Google didn't buy Motorola, I'm sure Sammy was still wanting their own OS for high end devices. Bada was not that OS. The purchase of Motorola by Google just sped things up for Sammy. It's all business. I won't be surprise if Sony goes for an exclusive with firefox. And I have no doubt Samsung's version of Android will continue to run on their hardware for a very long time. Of all the new OSs coming out, Tizen is the only one that stands a real chance of surviving.

 

[MRU]

Samsung will continue to use 3rd party OSs but they will start to put their Tizen on their high end hardware.

Then they certainly need to make Tizen more attractive. At the moment it looks like MeeGo's ugly sister who has been locked away in a dungeon festering....

It most certainly does not look 'high end' design wise, and that multitasking manager is just pain archaic.

 

[sentinelsx]

Then they certainly need to make Tizen more attractive. At the moment it looks like MeeGo's ugly sister who has been locked away in a dungeon festering....

It most certainly does not look 'high end' design wise, and that multitasking manager is just pain archaic.

It will improve, give it time.

All mobile OSes have been terrible from the start.