Google Has A New OS Project That May Replace Android Even As Other Mobile OS platforms Challenge The Status Quo

Could Google be getting ready to replace Android as we know it? Well numerous reports suggest something like that in the works. The internet giant is working on an open source operating system called Fuchsia that’s expected to work on phones and PCs. According to Android Police which broke the story over the weekend,

This is news because almost Google’s platforms like Chrome OS, Android, and Chromecasts are Linux powered but Fuchsia promises to cut across all platforms like PCs, phones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

“So, why? Why is Google quietly developing a brand new OS and kernel, with support for smartphones and PCs, possibly built with Material Design in mind? The most obvious guess, and the most exciting, is that Google hopes to one day replace Chrome OS and Android with Fuchsia. But perhaps Google will treat Fuchsia like Samsung treats Tizen OS; a lightweight OS used on hardware not suited for full-blown Android. Google’s collection of embedded hardware, such as the OnHub router and Google Home, is growing. Perhaps Fuchsia is only being developed for devices like these?”

The new OS has support for 32-bit and 64-bit ARM CPUs and 64-bit Intel-based PCs. It also uses Google’s Dart programming language but just before we get our hopes up, this could just be another project by Google that may eventually not see the light of day but if it does, it sure may just unseat Android in future devices.

Samsung has been experimenting with the idea of its own operating system Linux based Tizen operating system for phones and reportedly sold about three million of these phones in 2015 alone. The company launched its first ever Tizen based in India early last year as well and while it might seem as if the Tizen numbers are growing, phones in this category represented about 1.1 percent of total phone sales last year when you consider that Samsung sold 320 million phones last year alone.

It’s not all bad for an operating system that was announced in 2012 but really launched in 2014 for public use because its numbers are in pursuit of Microsoft’s Lumia smartphones at least which recorded over 25 million in sales last year but had a really bad last quarter of 2015. Only 4.5 million Lumia phones were sold. Tizen use is expect6ed to grow even as Samsung continues to introduce it in smartwatches and other wearables.

That said, the road to dominance is long if you consider that iOS and Android controlled nearly 96 percent of the entire mobile operating system market in the last quarter of 2014 according to IDC but if you look at the IDC chart in the report, Tizen falls under the “Others” category which saw their market share grow from  0.2 percent in 2013 to 0.6 percent in 2014 in a move that saw their smartphone sales grow from 2.3 million phones to 7.7 million in the same period. This represents a 234.8 percent year on year change. These operating systems which includes Tizen are ones to look out for.

Maybe this could be an avenue for Samsung to now push its own operating system in future. I guess we’ll wait and see

Image Source: Cyborgism