Andre Yoskowitz
19 Jan 2012 20:32
Samsung announced last week it was merging its own touchscreen OS, Bada, with the Linux-based Tizen OS.
Tizen is a joint collaboration between Intel and Samsung. Tizen was born from the ashes of MeeGo, which was an Intel-Nokia smartphone OS before Nokia left it for dead and jumped to Windows Phone.
Today, it appears the mobile phone giant is stepping back from its announcement, claiming that no decision has been made: "We are carefully looking at it as an option to make the platforms serve better for customers."
Most likely, Samsung will confirm the merger once a final product is done.
Samsung launched Bada in 2010 in an effort to update the operating system on their low-end smartphones and their touchscreen feature phones. The OS has multi-tasking, an app store and a completely rehauled UI that looks somewhat similar to Android.
Over 10 million Bada devices were sold last year, making it a marginal success for the company.
Bada will fold into Tizen (most likely), but all current apps and the SDK is backward compatible with the new OS. There is a chance that Bada devices, like the Wave phone, will be updated to Tizen later this year via an OTA update if the merger goes through.