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Samsung's 'high-end' Tizen smartphone due in months

Samsung firms up Tizen release dates as mobile head says there's "lacklustre demand" for its Windows Phone 8 devices in Europe.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Samsung has confirmed it will release a Linux-based Tizen smartphone by September.

Samsung executive vice president of mobile Lee Young Hee told Bloomberg a Tizen smartphone "in the high end category" would be out in August or September.

The launch date may have slipped a little: Samsung was believed to be releasing a Tizen smartphone in July or August, ZDNet's sister site CNET reported last month, where Samsung showed off a reference model running the Linux-based alternative to its hugely successful Android flagships, the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note.

For Samsung, Tizen offers an alternative to Android and another peg in its multi-platform strategy, which also includes fellow Linux OS Bada, which is merging with Tizen.

While Samsung controls the lion's share of both Android and smartphone shipments, Bada had a minor 1.3 percent share by OS in the most recent quarter, according to Gartner.

But Samsung's multi-OS efforts don't end there: the company has also built a Windows Phone 8 device, the Ativ. However, Samsung mobile chief J.K. Shin told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday he was seeing "lacklustre demand for Windows-based products" in Europe. Shin said Samsung had sold 50 million Galaxy S3s since launching the device. 

Meanwhile Japanese operator NTT Docomo has already committed to selling Samsung's Tizen phones, and more recently European carrier Orange confirmed it will sell Tizen devices from Samsung and Chinese network device maker, Huawei, which joined the Tizen Association in February.

The association's purpose is to foster an industry ecosystem around the open source platform and also includes Intel, Sprint, Vodafone, KT, SK Telecom, NEC, Panasonic and Fujitsu among its members.

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