Samsung is reportedly planning to align its bada device platform with Tizen, the operating system being developed under the auspices of the Linux Foundation.
According to Forbes, an executive for the South Korean handset giant last week said that there is “an effort that will merge bada and Tizen,” but it was not revealed what its roadmap for this is. The intention is that apps written using the bada SDK will be supported by Tizen, with developers for both eventually using the same tools.
The report suggests that while aligned from a developer perspective, the two OS could remain separate, with bada optimised for low-cost devices and Tizen positioned as a smartphone platform. This would enable the platforms to reach higher volumes, while enabling developers to use the same tools to address both high-end and mass-market handsets.
Forbes said that Samsung will offer “at least one or two” Tizen-powered devices this year, but that it will not become a cornerstone platform in its portfolio “anytime soon.” An “alpha” version of Tizen was announced earlier this year.
Samsung is already a member of the Tizen Association, a group intended to “drive industry engagement and in-market support” for the operating system. It was previously a member of LiMo Foundation, one of the two efforts which united to create Tizen alongside the Intel-backed MeeGo project.
The vendor does not break-out figures for its handset business, making it difficult to judge the success of bada. While Samsung’s smartphone portfolio is dominated by Android devices, it has been suggested that more bada handsets are sold than the combined volume for Windows Phone device makers.
According to reports late last year, more than 110 million bada apps have been downloaded from the Samsung Apps portal.
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