Samsung Electronics Co. has delayed the Russian release of Samsung Z, a mobile device that will run a new operating system called Tizen, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The Korean-based electronics company said in a statement on Monday that the Z wouldn't be sold in Russia starting in the third quarter, as was originally planned.
Samsung said it needed to "further enhance (the) Tizen ecosystem." News reports claim that this is a result of a shortage of applications available on the Tizen platform.
In the statement, Samsung didn't offer any information about when Tizen smartphones would be released or any other news on the operating system.
Eldar Murtazin, a Russian technology blogger, told the Journal that he's been told by confidential sources the Samsung Z device won't be released in Russia anytime in 2014.
Tizen is an open source, Linux system that Samsung plans to use to erode some of the smartphone software market share away from big boys Apple and Google, PC World reported. Samsung's smartphones have been using Google's Android operating system.
Samsung views Tizen as a way to reach the consumer without Google's interference, as the company allows free use of its operating system but frowns upon tech companies changing its software.
Over the past few months, Samsung has released smart watches and cameras that operate on the Tizen platform and has shown consumers models of Tizen TVs and phones.
The release of the Tizen-based Samsung smartphones has been held up by a series of problems. NTT DoCoMo Inc., the largest wireless carrier in Japan, in January canceled its plans to launch a Samsung Tizen phone. Orange SA, a French company, followed suit.
Samsung showed off a prototype of a Tizen smartphone in San Francisco at a developer conference, when the company said it would be launching them in 2014.
