Getting smartphone operating Tizen off the ground has proven more difficult than its backers first thought. Operator Orange no longer wants to predict when the first phones will arrive, and Samsung Electronics is also mum on its progress.

In February, the Tizen OS was demonstrated at Mobile World Congress, and executives from backers Samsung, Intel, NTT DoCoMo and Orange were out in full force. The Tizen project was born more than two years ago, when the Linux Foundation and Limo Foundation rebooted their efforts to compete with Apple and the Android camp by merging MeeGo and Limo. In addition to smartphones and tablets, it will be used on TVs and in-vehicle information and entertainment devices.
However, the MWC demo showed an OS that was still very much under development. Orange's device boss Yves Maitre at the time deflected criticism by saying that Orange wasn't in a hurry but it would ship the first smartphones based on Tizen during the second half of this year. At that point, that seemed like plenty of time, but in the end it wasn't enough.
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