Samsung may merge bada and Tizen

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Samsung may merge bada and Tizen

Korean giant looks to add scale to its Android counterweight, by converging its other two operating systems

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 16 January, 2012

READ MORE: Samsung | Application Environment | OS | Linux

When the first release of the Linux-based Tizen OS, whose development is led by Samsung and Intel, was seen earlier this month, it bore some strong resemblances to the Korean vendor's homegrown platform, bada. So it comes as little surprise that Samsung is reported to be converging the two systems.

Samsung has been putting significant resources behind bada, which powers its Wave family of midrange smartphones. Although Android is its primary OS, Wave has enjoyed considerable success, especially in some western European markets like France, and bada gives the vendor a counterweight to the power of Google, and a platform to test new applications and content offerings, and to create a developer community it controls. It was reported last year to be looking to open source bada, to broaden its reach among programmers and partners, so it would make sense to align it with Tizen, rather than supporting two open systems.

Tizen was formed last year from the merger of the MeeGo platform, also hosted by the Linux Foundation, and another mobile OS, LiMO. MeeGo was, in turn, created when Intel converged its Moblin mobile Linux system with Nokia's Maemo, but the latter went cold on the project when it threw in its lot with Microsoft and WP7. Intel and Samsung, the biggest supporter of the carrier-oriented LiMO, lead the Tizen process. However, Intel has an increasingly intense alliance with Google for Atom-based Android, and is preparing for the launch of Windows 8, so it may have little energy left for Tizen.

Samsung, by contrast, could see an easy route to add more high end functionality to bada via Tizen, also tapping into LiMO's support for carrier APIs and MeeGo's for smart cars. According to Forbes magazine, a Samsung executive said there was "an effort that will merge bada and Tizen", creating a common toolkit and SDK. However, despite a unified developer effort, which would help to create scale, there might still be two separate OS brands and platforms, with Tizen targeting smartphones and tablets, and bada reaching down to lower cost handsets and other low power gadgets.

The executive told Forbes that Samsung would offer "at least one or two" Tizen devices this year, but that it would not become a cornerstone element in its software portfolio "anytime soon". Last year, more than 110m bada apps were downloaded from the Samsung Apps portal, and although Samsung does not break down sales of its different devices, analysts believe its second OS had higher market share than WP7 in 2011.