Not such a bada idea after all
Embattled electronics giant Samsung has delivered a timely response to Apple's latest legal victory over its Android devices - the next version of its in-house platform, bada.
It's been almost two years since Samsung unveiled bada and for some time after we couldn't really see what the point of it was. Samsung was clearly going in the Android direction, so why waste time and resources on another?
While there is an argument for a cheaper, simpler, low-end mobile platform, the most resounding answer to this question has been given by the big platform players. Apple and Microsoft have threatened Android buy suing it at every possible opportunity, while Google, under the guise of protecting Android, is buying one of its biggest competitors.
In short, Android OEMs having increasingly little control over their own destiny, making having their own platform ever-more desirable. So while it took two years for version 2.0 to come along, we'd be surprised if bada 3.0 took anywhere near so long.
The Samsung announcement talks about how strong Samsung Wave sales have been and, to be honest, we would scoff at that statement if we hadn't seen independent corroboration. The new version includes NFC support, adding to the impression that it's competing directly with Symbian in the smartphone mass-market.
Simon Stanford, MD of mobile at Samsung UK said: "We are extremely pleased with the success of bada and our Wave devices, and have brought together our key mobile innovations for bada 2.0. Whilst we will continue to work with partners including Google and Microsoft, bada will be a big focus for us in the future as we work to make it a leading mobile platform."
Maybe Samsung will by webOS from HP after all. You can find out more details about the new version, and download the SDK, here.
