Samsung hopes to extend its app store offering to a wider range of handsets, including less sophisticated feature phones and entry level smartphones.
The Korean technology giant said Bada — which means “ocean” — was a new addition to the company’s mobile ecosystem and would give users a “fun and diverse mobile experience”.
Samsung said it chose the name to “convey the limitless variety of potential applications” that can be created using the new platform, and to demonstrate the company’s commitment to “a variety of open platforms in the mobile industry”.
It also offers mobile operators an easy-to-integrate platform that can be used to provide “unique and differentiated services to their customers”, said Samsung.
“By opening Samsung’s mobile platforms we will be able to provide rich mobile experiences on an increasing number of accessible smartphones,” said Dr Hosoo Lee, an executive vice president at Samsung. “Bada will be Samsung’s landmark, iconic new platform that brings an unprecedented opportunity for operators, developers and Samsung mobile phone users around the world.”
Samsung’s current smartphone range runs the open-source Symbian operating system and the Google-backed Android platform. Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner, said Samsung’s decision to develop and use its own platform for entry-level smartphones was its attempt to “differentiate its products from the competition.”
But Geoff Blaber, an analyst with CCS Insight, questioned Samsung’s thinking: “The big question is, does the mobile phone world need yet another operating system?,” he said.
Samsung hopes to give users a ”fun and diverse mobile experience” on a wider range of handsets, including less sophisticated feature phones and entry level smartphones via its newly created mobile platform dubbed “Bada”. Bada means Ocean in Korean.
Samsung said it chose the name to “convey the limitless variety of potential applications” that can be created using the new platform, and to demonstrate the company’s commitment to “a variety of open platforms in the mobile industry”.
It also offers mobile operators an easy-to-integrate platform that can be used to provide “unique and differentiated services to their customers”, said Samsung.
“By opening Samsung’s mobile platforms we will be able to provide rich mobile experiences on an increasing number of accessible smartphones,” said Dr Hosoo Lee, executive vice president at Samsung. ”Bada will be Samsung’s landmark, iconic new platform that brings an unprecedented opportunity for operators, developers and Samsung mobile phone users around the world.”
One can’t help but ask – Does the world need another mobile operating system?
