Do we really need another smartphone OS? Samsung thinks so... its new Bada OS will debut next month, with the first handsets and Bada app store due by min-2010.
Samsung is shuffling the cards in its smartphone deck and adding its own operating system to the current line-up of Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.
Named Bada – Korean for ‘ocean’ – the OS is believed to be based on Linux. But while Samsung trumpets Bada as an ‘open platform’ this doesn’t necessarily mean ‘open source’.
Bada is intended to reach down into lower-end ‘feature phones’ as well as smartphones, and may replace Samsung’s proprietary OS on those devices. It’s also speculated that once Bada takes off, Samsung will ditch Windows Mobile and Symbian for the home-grown OS.
“More and more people want rich and connected application-experiences that are currently available only for smartphone consumers” explains the official
Bada site. “Samsung has developed Bada to make these exclusive smartphone experiences available to everyone.”
Samsung’s roadmap plots the release of the first Bada-powered mobile phone in the first half of 2010, to be accompanied by the first Bada apps appearing in Samsung’s own application store.
We’re told to expect “multiple models of Bada-powered mobile phones” in the second half of the year, during which the app store will be rolled out to “about 30 countries”.
Developers will get their first look at the OS next month. Samsung is also planning to release a Software Development Kit so that programmers can start writing the crucial apps which are becoming a make-or-break issue for mobile phones.