Having tried to develop a competitor for Android and christening it as Tizen, Samsung is yet to commercially release a smartphone powered by the OS. It seems that the company is gearing up for a release though as it has reportedly moved 500 mobile engineers to other divisions including the one working on Tizen.
It is said that the company is more focused on developing the internet of things where the smart devices communicate with each other to carry out pre-set tasks using internet connectivity. While the company announced plans for Samsung Z smartphone with Tizen OS, it was later postponed for an indefinite period of time due to the development challenges.
The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and in a statement Samsung said that the motive behind the decision is to “strengthen the company’s overall software prowess.”
As a result of the move, the company’s mobile division will have fewer engineers and so the focus on developing Tizen for smartphones will also change accordingly. An HI Investment & Securities analyst Song Myung-sup said that the move will help the company focus more on solving the convergence issues in the their network devices including TVs, smartphone wearables, etc, while the focus on Tizen for smartphone shifts.
The company announced in 2013 that it has 40,506 software engineers and the figure in 2012 was 33,449. As the company has not shared a breakdown of the figures, the number of engineers left in the mobile division cannot be determined.
Some sources say that the company might bring in some fresh blood to liven up its mobile division and if it does so, it might take up to 16 months for their new ideas to reflect on their products. It remains to be seen if Samsung is looking to rethink its ideas for new mobile products.
