Samsung Bada

Expected December 2009
11th November 2009

Does the world need another mobile operating system? Samsung seem to think so, with their announcement of a platform called "Bada" (pronouned "Baah-da"), which refers to the ocean or sea in Korean.

Based on the operating system that powers the Samsung Jet and S5230, Bada will initially be aimed at touchscreen phones, but presumably it will be available widely within the Samsung range at some point in the future.

Strategically, Samsung have a presence in just about every OS market, including Windows, Symbian, Android and LiMo. Some reports indicate that Samsung plan to ditch Windows Mobile and Symbian completely, other reports indicate that just Symbian is in danger. We rather think that Samsung will stay with Windows as it has a comprehensive range of Windows-powered smartphones, but their commitment to Symbian has always been fairly minimal despite making some excellent devices of this type.

So, what has changed? Actually very little - Samsung were already making high-end touchscreen phones based on their own proprietary operating system, but now they have given it a marketing name and have opened it up for external developers. Building up an application pool for Bada devices is important, because one currently disappointing thing with Samsung touchscreen devices is the lack of additional software to download.

Although Samsung say that there are committed to open platforms, Bada seems to be limited strictly to Samsung handsets. There aren't many mobile phone manufacturers these days that can get away with launching their own operating system, but Samsung certainly has the sales volumes needed. The problem is that it will take some time for Bada phones to become available, and for developers to write new and interesting add-ons for them.. in order to encourage this there's a Bada developer challenge which includes monetary and other rewards for top developers.

Perhaps the launch of Bada shows two things - firstly, Samsung continues to grow and mature as a mobile phone manufacturer, and secondly - if the rumours are correct - Symbian is looking increasingly like a Nokia-only product with a questionable future.

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