CES 2014: No plans to bring Samsung's Tizen to US, at least for now

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Although best known for its variety of Android-based smartphones and tablets, Samsung continues to work on its own mobile operating system - but US buyers may not get a taste of it for some time.

FierceWireless reported Thursday that Samsung Electronics appears to be in no hurry to unleash the open-source mobile operating system known as Tizen upon unsuspecting US consumers.

According to Director of Product Marketing Ryan Bidan, Samsung feels the US isn't "a great text market" for such products, calling the American wireless market "pretty mature."

"Bringing a new entrant here that doesn't meet a certain performance bar would be a challenge. Recognizing that, we don't want to set ourselves up for failure," Bidan elaborated during an interview at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show this week.

Trio of baskets

Samsung isn't the only company hedging its bets on the Linux-based Tizen, which is also backed by Sprint, Intel, Huawei, Orange and Vodafone - although it is the largest supporter by far.

For now, Samsung appears to have all of its eggs predominantly in Google's Android basket, although the manufacturer continues to support Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 platform as well.

Bidan explained that Samsung's trifecta of mobile operating systems is the "right direction for us," focusing its energy on a "holistic product solution" that involves the right combination of software and hardware.

Tizen smartphones could launch by the end of March in Japan, according to NTT DoCoMo spokesman Jun Otori, with Samsung's first product offering expected at next month's Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain.

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