Bada, Samsung's own mobile operating system, might be poised to become one of the big four mobile platforms as it promises to go open source soon.

The Wall Street Journal is running a story that claims that Samsung will open source the Bada operating system some time in 2012.

Programmers tend to think that there are three main mobile operating systems - iOS, Android and a runner up - at the moment, Windows 7.  Yes, you could add Symbian and Blackberry but to be honest most think that these are on their way out.

The only other rising contender is Samsung's Bada, even if few are actually writing apps for it at the moment. Samsung has worked quite hard to get developers on its side with easy to use SDKs and competitions for apps. The most likely reason that developers avoid it is that it is a proprietary operating system, used only by Samsung and, there just aren't many handsets that use it. Currently it is only on Samsung's Wave 3, Wave M and Wave Y handsets.

It makes sense for Samsung to start to promote Bada as an alternative operating system now because of Google's purchase of Motorola. Samsung sidelined Bada to a great extent because of the success it was having with Android  phones, but now Google is a direct competitor in the hardware market the playing field isn't looking quite as level as it was.

It was rumoured that Samsung might buy WebOS when it was more or less dropped by HP, but this was denied by Samsung. After all, why buy an OS when you have your own doing the same job. Promoting, and open sourcing, Bada might also avoid many of the patent issue that currently dog Android.

Samsung is currently up to bada 2.0 and, despite not setting any records, it has been gaining ground in terms of market. Now might be a good time to download the SDK.

More Information

bada

 

bada Developers

WSJ bada article (paywalled)

Getting started with PhoneGap

bada with In-App Advertising

Is it time for bada?

 

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