Months after embracing Microsoft’s .Net, Samsung has formally added support for the same software framework to its Tizen platform. The new development comes from Tizen 4.0 that will be released in September this year.
Samsung had brought the first preview of .Net Core support and some new Visual Studio Tools for Tizen operating system in last November. But now, the Korean giant is on the move to make developers familiar with .Net Standard and Xamarin.Forms .Net APIs. This is apparently aimed to expand the app ecosystem of the open source platform.
“The first official version of Tizen .Net will be released in September 2017 as a part of Tizen 4.0. Until then, several preview or beta versions will be released in every two or three months so that developers can begin making themselves familiar with Tizen .Net and give early feedback,” Samsung’s developer team writes in the official Tizen roadmap page.
ARM and x86 architecture compatibility
The Tizen 4.0 public release with .Net support will be available for both ARM and x86 architectures. Though Microsoft’s framework will initially bring new apps to Tizen-based smart TVs, the upcoming support would be expanded across wearables like Samsung Gear smartwatches and even smartphone over time.
Some initial reports suggest that apart from the range of Samsung’s hardware, Tizen would also get its presence on development boards such as Raspberry Pi and Artik. This is likely to boost the developer community to consider Samsung’s platform for their next apps.
Android Things competitor
Tizen is already competing against Android and iOS. But the addition of development board compatibility would make the platform a major rival against Android Things, which Google recently launched to support IoT devices. Samsung is already giving away huge cash prizes to developers to make them inclined towards its platform.
Apart from Samsung, Huawei, Intel, Panasonic and Vodafone are serving the community as the members of the Tizen Association. All these players are also interestingly supporting Microsoft on its major software developments.
