Today at the Samsung Developer Conference the company announced that it would open its smart TV platform, Tizen TV, to third-party manufacturers.
“With Tizen, consumers can stream content from hundreds of apps,” Sang Kim, Global Head of Smart TV Business Development said during the keynote. “For the first time we’re going to make the Tizen TV OS available to other manufacturers.”
According to Kim, over 100 million TVs currently support Tizen and while that’s a substantial number, this move could stem the flow of manufacturers like Hisense and TCL from rushing to Roku TV and Android TV platforms for their smart platforms. It could even increase the Bixby user base too, which is a key goal for Samsung.
So what, exactly, makes Tizen so appealing that TV makers would want to adopt it? Primarily its Samsung TV Plus platform which offers free content and integrates with over-the-top cable providers, as well as its large app library powered by developers (hence why the announcement was made at its developer conference).
Unfortunately, beyond the announcement of news, Samsung isn’t offering any additional details – it’s not ready to announce potential partners, for example, nor is it ready to reveal when the first third-party Tizen TVs will be available.
The silver lining? With CES 2020 right around the corner, more information is likely coming in two month's time.
Source: Samsung
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