Tizen Association awards $4 million to developers
As Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, Spain, the Tizen Association has awarded $4 million to developers willing to assist in the growth of the Tizen app ecosystem.
The Tizen App Challenge requested developers to use the Tizen mobile operating system to develop apps in a variety of categories, including games, productivity, education, media and social networking.
Mobile world congress 2016
The Tizen Association says that prizes were awarded for both native Tizen-based and HTML5 applications to the tune of $4.04 million to 54 entrants in nine categories, in addition to the HTML5 category. In addition to native Tizen apps, HTML5 apps were also on display. Ten were chosen and the developers were awarded $50,000 each.
By enticing developers to step away from more well-known operating systems including Android and iOS, Tizen hopes not only to expand the pool of available applications within the ecosystem, but market the software as a commercially viable alternative to run our devices.
In addition to the Tizen app challenge news, as reported by sister site CNET, Tizen announced 15 new partners at Mobile World Congress. The Tizen Association said that companies including SoftBank, Sprint and ZTE are all interested in working with the open-source software.
While a Tizen-operated smartphone still remains a no-show after last years' delays -- with NTT Docomo backing out of plans to sell such a device -- Samsung's Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches have become the operating system's first mainstream products to take advantage of the Tizen OS.
The Tizen Association is backed by Samsung and Intel.