Samsung product

Samsung Electronics will be the first to sell a smartphone running on the Tizen operating system through Japanese carrier NTT Docomo and other partners this year, according to Japan's Daily news report.

Samsung, NTT Docomo, and their partners hope to build a platform that will rival the major operating systems from Apple and Google. Other carriers interested in Tizen include the U.K.'s Vodaphone and France Telecom, according to the report.

Tizen is an alternative Linux-based operating system seen as a more open platform that will rival Google's Android and Apple's iOS. Tizen emerged from the death of Nokia's MeeGo. Intel, which originally worked with Nokia on MeeGo, and Samsung took over the development of the operating system, which is also overseen by the Linux Foundation.

It is seen as more open than Google's Android, which despite its claims of openness, has irked some partners with certain restrictions, including the inability to make massive changes to the underlying platform.

The various companies involved with Tizen see the platform as a potential alternative with both Android and the closed iOS operating system from Apple getting too powerful.