BANGALORE, INDIA: Samsung, the Korean mobile handsets manufacturer, has the second biggest range of Android devices only next to HTC, the Taiwan handset manufacturer. And Samsung is also stated to be beefing up its Android based offering by adding more Galaxy themed smartphones.

Despite the Android army marching ahead, Samsung recently released the “bada” operating system (OS), meaning “ocean” in Korean. With the new bada, Samsung is aiming to bring a new range of smartphones that are affordable and yet feature-rich. The new 'open' platform has been designed to provide a complete mobile ecosystem for developers through a developer support program.

In an interview to CIOL, Justin Hong, vice president, Service Platform Group, Samsung discussed the uniqueness of the new bada platform and the opportunities it opens for the developer community.

CIOL:Is Samsung planning to bring bada operating system on the entire smartphone product range?

Justin Hong: Currently, bada is being shipped only on Samsung Wave. This year we are planning to launch 3-4 more smartphones based on bada platform. The promise of bada is to provide smartphones for every one. That's the vision of Samsung, which bada is enabling.
With bada we want to reach the high-end segment users who look for great graphics, lot of multimedia, and quality sound. With bada we are also trying to create another new segment, as the current feature phone users can upgrade to smartphones with the new platform as prices of handsets can come down to affordable price range with bada.

CIOL: What makes bada unique from other operating systems?

JH: Most smartphones need high-end hardware. They need higher storage, large display screens and large batteries. Many of them also come with two different processors, one for doing the communications and one more for running the applications.

Bada platform is designed to run on hardware devices  with come with both high specifications and low specification. The platform works fine on hardware that come with single processor and lesser memory also. Bada can scale from lower level of hardware to higher levels and is the first of its kind in mobile platform. Secondly, Samsung has a good product line up to support the new platform.

CIOL:What about the user interface on the new platform?

JH:Based on Samsung’s signature TouchWiz User Interface, Samsung bada platform provides an easy, simple, and intuitive UI without compromising efficiency. To enhance creativity and user interactivity, Samsung bada provides flash control, web control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control, and face detection. Also, it supports sensor-based, context-aware applications.

By using various sensors such as accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity, and activity sensors, application developers can easily implement context-aware interactive applications.

CIOL:How do you plan to support your customers and developer community with bada?

JH:Currently, bada is running on 1 gigahrds device. But bada is designed to run on lower CPU speed as well. The new platform is not just a client-side platform. There is a whole back-end service infrastructure we have built up. Samsung bada differentiates its position by supporting various service-centric features such as social networking, device synchronization, content management, location-based services, and commerce services - all supported by back-end bada servers.

The device will go to market in India this month. The developer community in India has an opportunity to develop India-specific applications. To encourage the developer community to develop applications, we are conducting Global Developer Day events. We have a tech support team at our R&D center in Bangalore with about 2,400 engineers. There is also a team set up to evangelize this bada platform and provide technical support to the developer community. The support team will be assisting anybody who wish to develop a application - it can be a student or a start-up company.

CIOL: How has been the response to the Samsung bada Developer Challenge?

JH:Typically, application developers do not have access to the actual product. With our R&D center in Bangalore, we have made the platform available for developers. Any developer can walk into our facility and test his/her application on the platform. We are also making sure that developers get all support possible in order to launch their application on our application store.

The highest number of entries for the challenge is from India. The Challenge is the first chance for developers to win a share of a US$2,700,000 prize fund, simply by using the features of the new bada platform to build a wide variety of applications for bada devices.The Samsung bada Champion (Ist Prize winner) wins a grand prize of US$300,000. The competition is one of the largest ever for developers of mobile software and is testament to Samsung’s commitment to the new bada platform.