Samsung today announced the bada 2.0 SDK (Software Development Kit), an application development tool for Samsung's own mobile platform.
Samsung expects bada 2.0 to be a catalyst in expanding the global distribution of bada smartphones. bada is currently found in a limited number of Samsung budget phones, such as seven Samsung Wave devices, which have proven to be popular in Europe, China and Southeast Asia.
"Samsung bada and our Wave devices continue to succeed around the world, taking advantage of the mobile technology and brand awareness of Samsung?s leadership in the market," said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung?s Mobile Communications Business. "We have brought together our key mobile innovations in bada 2.0, setting the foundation for it to become a leading mobile platform."
Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February 2011, bada 2.0 includes many new features. The new platform supports multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, Near Field Communication (NFC) and voice recognition.
In addition, considering the increased use of web using smartphones, bada 2.0 supports HTML5 and improved Flash functions . By supporting standard WAC 2.0, bada aims to expand its developer community.
"bada is a significant innovation and a key component in Samsung's multi-platform strategy; we are committed to investing in its success. We are expanding our developer community and creating a strong ecosystem that benefits both developers and end-users. Developers have an opportunity to reach a significant customer base with new, entertaining and compelling applications while consumers will receive an outstanding smartphone experience." added Shin.
A key feature for developer partners is the introduction of In-app Ads. Using the Ads API (Application Programming Interface) developers for bada 2.0 can easily insert advertisements, creating new revenue opportunities. Samsung has also upgraded its application development environment, providing developers with increased support. An Emulator has been added to foster a development process suitable to the target environment. Tools such as Profiler optimize the device's performance ensuring that resources like memory and processing power are used to their fullest capacity.
bada 2.0 SDK can be downloaded from the bada developer site (developer.bada.com). Samsung has enhanced the 'Samsung Apps' retail store and expanded full availability through to 121 countries worldwide. With this 2.0 version, more differentiated functions will be offered from Samsung Apps, including new purchasing options and recommendations. Samsung claims that Samsung Apps has received 10 million application downloads in 3 months and passed the 100 million-mark in March 2011. The store currently houses approximately 40,000 applications.
Samsung's push for bada 2.0 comes just one day after a Dutch court ruled against the S. Korean company and banned sales Samsung's popular Galaxy S, S II and Ace smartphones in Europe.
Samsung is curently producing Android-running smartphones, but Google's recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility could pose challenges to Samsung in the future.
Earlier this week, South Korean government announced plans to develop an open-source operating system (OS) for mobile phones that will help secure local smartphone makers' future competitiveness against their rivals such as Apple. Kim Jae-hong, a deputy minister from the S. Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy, hoped that Samsung would change its negative stance and would participate in the joint development of an open OS for mobiles.
