Rumor has it that the recently announced Tizen smartphone OS may be picking up quite a bit of support. DigiTimes reports that Acer and Asus are both planning to develop hardware using Tizen, which is scheduled to launch in early 2012. HTC, for it’s part, is still on the fence, but hasn’t ruled out supporting the fledgling platform.
Tizen is a new smartphone operating system that has replaced MeeGo, likely because Samsung is replacing Nokia as a chief development partner with Intel. Tizen, like MeeGo, is designed to help Intel processors gain footholds in new markets. It’s likely that a good portion of Tizen’s code is based on MeeGo, but now that Samsung is Intel’s big partner, they likely needed a new brand. Tizen will also support more open standards like HTML5 and will be able to support in-vehicle dashboards, smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and a variety of other form factors. To learn more about it, check out our introduction.
No official announcements have been made by Acer and Asus, so this information should be taken as no more than a rumor. If true, however, it would seem that Tizen is attracting a lot of interest fairly quickly. Manufacturers sure seem weary of Android. It looks like MeeGo may have been ahead of its time.