Nokia-Samsung New Partners, Google Shunned A Bit

Tuesday, September 02, 2014:  Nokia has entered a partnership with Samsung to provide its map and location services to smart devices which are Tizen-powered. The Finnish firm's location-based services, HERE, will also provide solutions to Samsung's new smartwatch, Gear S. Nokia said in a statement, "HERE has partnered with Samsung to bring its maps and location platform services to Tizen-powered smart devices by Samsung, including the Samsung Gear S." HERE will be powering an application called Navigator on Gear S and it offers walk navigation and public transit routing. Tizen is an open and flexible operating system and it was launched as a competitor to Android and iOS systems. This OS targets stakeholders' requirements in the fields of mobile and connected device ecosystem. The target audience of this OS also includes device manufacturers, mobile operators, application developers and independent software vendors (ISVs). Samsung is set to launch its debut Tizen powered smartphone which will reduce the dependence on Google's Android. Samsung is the global leader in the smartphone business and the company said Tizen-powered 'Samsung Z' will be first launched in Russia followed by other markets. But Samsung didn't disclose further details. Presently most Samsung smartphones are powered by Android OS. Previously Bada OS used to run on Samsung phones but it was not much successful. Since then the Tizen platform is being worked upon, backed by chipmaker Intel Corp. The other popular operating systems ruling the current market are iOS, Windows and BlackBerry's proprietary platform.