As the largest Android handset manufacturer, Samsung has grown so confident in its position in the smartphone market that it plans to expand its product line to include phones with the Tizen operating system, Bloomberg Businessweek reported Thursday. Speculation suggests the company is moving away from Google as a result of Google’s acquisition of Motorola in 2011.

Like Android, Tizen is an open-source software platform that is already in use in tablets, vehicle infotainment systems, and smart TVs, though it hasn’t nearly reached the market share of Android or iOS. Tizen competes with other small-scale open-source platforms, including Sailfish and the recently announced Ubuntu for smartphones.

But with some hand-holding from one of the most profitable smartphone manufacturers in the world Tizen could be pushed into the big time. Samsung has a 35 percent market share and shipped 56.9 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012.

Samsung has achieved significant success with Android, though the company never seems entirely satisfied with it, applying its TouchWiz UI skin to nearly every product aside from its Google partnership phones, where such trappings are forbidden. Tizen, which was formed by executives from Intel and Samsung as well as Vodafone, may afford the company greater flexibility.

Samsung plans to announce multiple phones with the Tizen OS for 2013, but it will likely restrict their launch to Eastern markets, a similar deployment to the company’s Bada handsets that failed to gain much traction. If the launches are successful, Samsung may circle its Tizen products around to the West. The Japanese operator DoCoMo, a fourth Tizen partner, will likely be the first carrier to receive Samsung’s Tizen handsets, according to The Next Web.

While Google may be unhappy to see its most successful partner move away, even tentatively, it can respond by finally putting its ownership of Motorola to work with a handset that will vault the manufacturer up to Samsung’s ranks. The rumored Google “X Phone” could benefit significantly from a close working partnership between Google and Motorola with tighter software and hardware integration.

Google insisted from the day it announced its Motorola acquisition that the company wouldn't receive any special benefits when it came to Android; Motorola has never been a partner on an Android flagship phone. As Samsung, a partner on two Google flagship phones in the past, inches away from Android, Motorola has an opportunity to step in.

The last two Google flagship phones, even for their positive reviews, fell a bit flat: Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus that debuted Android 4.0 in late 2011 was impressive but was one-upped in short order by Samsung’s own Galaxy SIII. LG’s Nexus 4, launched in November 2012 with Android 4.2, was an impressive piece of hardware that virtually guaranteed timely Android updates for years to come, but curiously did not include a 4G LTE radio and was only available contract-free or with the fourth-largest carrier, T-Mobile. Points for flexibility, but without marketing from larger carriers or access to LTE, it will be hard for the Nexus 4 to gain much traction.

The X Phone is reportedly meant to be a strike at the iPhone and its market success, but it may just as well be meant to step in as a competitor to the runaway success of Samsung’s Galaxy line, as Unwired View points out. Both the S series phones and Galaxy Notes have sold in massive numbers: the most recent model of the Note sold 3 million units in a month, and the Galaxy S III hit 30 million units in 5 months.

No guarantees, but it’s possible we’ll see some or all of these indicators pan out at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. Stay tuned for Ars’ coverage, which begins Sunday, January 6 and will run through the week.