Google' mobile Operating System (or OS) is Andriod. Microsoft's mobile OS is Windows Phone. Apple's mobile OS is iOS. Nokia's old OS Symbian and now is Windows Phone. Samsung's OS? Bada.
Bada has a few things going for it. Currently the platform is running on Samsung smart phones as well as Samsung smart TV's. As the world's number one technology company (by revenue), Samsung is in a unique position to push it's mobile OS to developers. But wait, wasn't that Nokia's position with Symbian a couple of years ago? What happened in that scenario? Nokia decided to open source Symbian in an attempt to lure developer support into its ecosystem... which failed. Nokia now is running Microsoft's Windows Phone OS exclusively and Symbian is dying a sad, sad death. I think that the decision to make Bada Open-Source has nothing to do with mobile devices and everything to do with becoming the standard OS for all TV's.
From a mobile phone perspective, there are many different reasons why Samsung might be pulling this move although I feel it has little to do with mobile phones. With all of the lawsuits out there, we know that they will not be partnering with Apple any time soon. So that leaves only a couple of options. So let's look at their options:
1. Samsung can continue to try to leverage the Open-Source communities and hope that Bada can keep their interest.. won't happen, not enough money in writing code for Samsung only devices.
2. Samsung partners with Google and uses the Android OS for their mobile devices and Google TV for their televisions. Last year Google Partnered with Sony to provide the OS for a TV. It seems like Samsung partnering deeper with Google would not be in their best interest as Samsung hardware competes with Japan based Sony on almost every level. Android is out.
3. Lastly there is Microsoft. Microsoft has a history of partnering with hardware vendors providing the OS support for the hardware at a price. This is how Microsoft gained a stronghold on the PC world. So, would Samsung partner with Microsoft... hmm. I would say yes except for one thing.. Nokia. Recently, Microsoft and Nokia became blood brothers, connecting Nokia's hardware infrastructure to Microsoft's Windows Phone OS. Would Samsung want to become another exclusive Microsoft mobile OS clone? If they become a Microsoft exclusive OS, they become the step brother in the Microsoft/Nokia brotherhood. So what choice does Samsung have??
Separate and dominate. Currently, Samsung wants to have Bada on mobile devices and TV's. I say split them up:
Mobile Devices
On mobile devices, ditch the overhead of the Bada platform and go with Android and Windows Phone. This does a number of things for Samsung. It reduces the money and time that it takes to maintain and promote a dying OS. It also gives Samsung a unique opportunity to leverage their hardware manufacturing capabilities and scale to get a better deal for OS licensing from Microsoft and Android... thus lowering the cost of creating high end mobile devices. Also, they can leverage those relationships and technology to create rich apps that integrate with their other hardware platforms. Heck, strike a deal with Android or Windows Phone that will allow EXCLUSIVE API's into your other Bada platforms.. For instance, if you want a mobile phone app to be your TV or stereo remote, it has to be a Windows Phone..
TV and other Samsung Devices
Stick with Bada. Stop trying to promote Bada as a standard for all TV OS's. In my opinion, if Samsung loses the war on getting their OS set as a standard platform for TV's... and they WILL loose, they would have caused more damage then they know. Samsung must understand that the power is in the developer ecosystem. Developers have to love writing code, and more importantly, they must be able to make a LIVING at writing the code for the platform.
I feel that the reason why Samsung is making Bada open-source is to lock in support for an adoption for their TV OS standard. I believe they are thinking that if the industry feels like there are not advantages for Samsung, they will use the Bada platform as the standard.. won't happen. To much bad blood between hardware makers.
- suge's blog
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