Samsung Officially Launches Bada Mobile Platform

Nearly a month after it first announced it, Korean giant Samsung has officially released Bada, its Linux-based, open source mobile platform that's set to take on rival operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android, all of which are already sold by Samsung.

Bada, which means Ocean in Korean, is currently a platform only with the first phones expected to be available before the end of H1 2010. A developer SDK is already available on Samsung's website and Bada is set to use Samsung's mature TouchWiz user interface.

More than 50 countries will see the rollout of the platform and it seems that ultimately, Bada is only an evolution of the Samsung's current operating system with the added spice of Linux. 

It is likely that during the course of 2010, Bada goodness will trickle down from high end smartphones to entry level models converting all dumb mobile phones into smartphones.

Bada will use a Flash-based UI and will be compatible with C++ plus will include a number of features such as profile and buddy management, face recognition, location triggering and programmable vibration.

More significantly, Samsung is quietly putting up an ecosystem that will allow it (and its partners) to derive significant revenues from smartphones; this includes Capcom - who will produce and port games for the platform.