Samsung Media Solutions Center boss Hong Won-pyo recently stated that the company plans to phase out the old Bada operating system and focus its efforts on the new hot-n-voluptuous open-source Tizen platform. The company is reportedly wanting to distance itself from Android -- which has seemingly brought it financial grief over the last few years thanks to Apple's patent arsenal – so that it's not quite so reliant on one platform.
"Everything is smooth," a Google rep assured CNET regarding the relationship between Google and Samsung. "There's a lot of respect between the two companies."
Samsung's in-house Bada platform made its first appearance on the Wave S8500 three years ago at Mobile World Congress 2010, and seemed to have some developer support including Twitter, EA, Gameloft and others. A beta of the Bada SDK was released in May 2010 followed by v1.0 in August and v2.0 a year later. Only five devices have surfaced using the OS including the Samsung S8530 Wave II and the Samsung Wave 3 s8600.
As seen with Samsung's portfolio, the company has mostly relied on Android to power its smartphones and tablets. The Bada operating system captured virtually no market share whatsoever, yet Samsung is now planning to phase out its own internal operating system for another low-profile platform while still relying on Android.
Still, it would make sense that Samsung would begin using Tizen on its smartphones and tablets given that the company, along with Intel, is part of the Technical Steering Group which governs the Linux-based platform's development. Like Mozilla's Firefox OS, Tizen fully embraces HTML5 and a consistent user experience across devices.
Samsung reportedly plans to take the best aspects of Bada and throw them into the Tizen mix. Tizen will thus be backwards compatible with Bada OS-based apps, allowing the newer platform to a have a larger catalog. Meanwhile, Samsung will continue on with its diverse, multi-OS strategy by offering devices based on Android and Windows Phone 8 -- there are currently no plans for Firefox OS.
News of Bada assimilating into the Tizen collective arrives after a report claimed that Samsung plans to launch its first Tizen-based smartphone in July or August. The Tizen Association is expected to make a formal announcement from Mobile World Congress 2013 later this week. Additional non-Samsung Tizen phones are also expected to launch by the end of the year.