Samsung Merging Bada Components With Tizen

By Kevin Parrish
published

Samsung is phasing out its in-house Bada OS for the tasty new Tizen.

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.

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Kevin Parrish
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dalethepcman
    I can't see how Android has brought them financial woe's recently as they are posting record profits. All of the litigation against them was due to redesign decisions that they made to alter the stock OS. If they would actually install the OS as Google designed it, they wouldn't have nearly the fragmentation issues, or lawsuits that currently impact their product line.

    As for BADA it was DoA, now they are trying to use some other unheard of OS when the solution is right in front of them. I would prefer them use BB10 than some other unknown crapware.
    Reply
  • Kami3k
    Article 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.
    Lol que?
    Reply
  • chuckydb
    ''The company is reportedly wanting to distance itself from Android''
    Right.... I'm sure they would have had the success they had without Android.
    /potato
    Reply
  • SAL-e
    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.
    How much information about the author we can get from single sentence. Let's try it:
    1. "The company is reportedly wanting to distance itself from Android" - FUD originated in Cupertino, CA and Seattle, WA. I guess he is a bit lazy to do real reporting instead he defaults to repeating others information.
    2. "... which has seemingly brought it financial grief over the last few years ..." - He is badly misinformed and lazy to verify his statement. As others pointed out Samsung is posting record profits thanks to Android, that now FUD machine in Cupertino and Seattle has changed the subject. Check your FUD source for updates. There is new tune now: "Samsung is thread to Google". And "Galaxy is taking over Android brand". bla... bla... bla...
    3. "... thanks to Apple's patent arsenal ..." - misinformation again. The patents that Apple inserted against Samsung in the first trial are preliminary invalidated by USPTO. Apple have to spend some money and effort to save them and there are no guaranty they will succeed. I guess that is why Apple is on the hurry to continue with second trial.

    OR... I hope he is well paid to be lazy and misinformed.
    Reply
  • dan-fish
    I love how the first 4 comments focused on the exact same quote.
    Reply
  • digiex
    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.

    I thought design aesthetics was the real culprit in the patent litigation not the OS.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    We've seen some rift surface between Samsung and Google in recent days though, and I think Samsung's overreliance on Android is putting them in a vulnerable position.
    Reply