Samsung dropping Symbian for Bada in 2010, says senior VP
By Ross Miller 
posted Nov 11th 2009 1:14AM
posted Nov 11th 2009 1:14AM
Android is in, Windows Mobile is in (despite rumors to the contrary), and Bada is definitely in for next year, according to Samsung senior vice president Don Joo Lee. Not making the phone manufacturer's cut? Symbian. Digitimes has it from the exec that its new proprietary mobile OS will be taking the place of the Nokia-friendly platform. Hey, all the phones to end a legacy on, the Omnia HD certainly isn't a bad swan song.
about time, if you ask me...
windows mobile 7 is full priority according to ballmer. lus he has already said he wished it was out yesterday. oh well thats the past.
Anyone who thinks wm7 will be a letdown is a moron. the screenshots look nice, and wm has more apps than android will ever have.
Looking at digitimes recent trackrecord this might be another misscall.
So much for Samsung's seat on the Symbian Foundation board....
Who knows, Symbian may return in years to come with some new astounding OS. Heck, might even be in production now!
If Microsoft doesn't deliver through their winmo 7 they will face the same fate as symbian.
Ultimately only OS standing in mobile space will be: iPhone OS, Android, and WinMo (depends on winmo 7)
All those companies holding on to their EGO (read: Nokia, palm et al) will have to adapt or die a slow death... oh wait they already are dying!
Palm, yeah. I wouldn't discount nokia just yet though. Sure, they may not seem to be going anywhere with S60 (thus Maemo), but there's a ton of Nokia dumbphones out there, a lot more than you think. So for cellphone (not just smartphones) marketshare wise, Nokia is still up there.
For everyone who think Symbian is dead.
Here is an example of the future capabilities of Symbian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP3u58uvJ4U
(Most probably, the phone in the video seems to be Nokia 5800).
Think again!!
I wouldn't say Nokia's dying, not at all, they still maintain a large marketshare for normal phones worldwide, maybe not so much smartphones due to competition and lack of decent offerings but that's always liable to change. Even if not, they can just ride the other market shares.
WM7 seems interesting, not everyone cares for Android, and especially if 6.5 devices like the HD2 will be upgradable to it.
@hary536: That kind of laggy UI won't cut it anymore, especially with Android going into almost any kind of devices.
I seriously don't want the webOS to die. I think it's the best out of the 6. Too bad Palm doesn't have much market presence and the Pre's hardware isn't that interesting. =(
"If Microsoft doesn't deliver through their winmo 7 they will face the same fate as symbian."
What? You mean it'll get over 50% OS market share?
@pika
That kind of "laggy UI" is on a Nokia 5800. It'll translate quite easily to more powerful units with capacitive screens and, since the UI elements are familiar to the vast majority of the phone buying public outside the US, it'll do very well.
Also, on the whole Bada thing, do we have any backup citations to Digitimes because as far as I understood it Bada is a UI layer like TouchFlo they'll be using on their low end handsets.?
hary,
If that video was the "future" capabilities of Symbian, Nokia will get even less market share in that "future" I would say that UI is actually worse than current iPhone OS or Android 2.0. (I see it's kind of Android 2.0 mixed with Samsung Omnia UI which I hated)
That UI may work for users who never experienced either iPhone or Android 2.0, but number of those people are shrinking fast.
are you nuts or really that ... dense...
The company with an ego problem is APPLE! All they sell is overhyped ego.
"Ego problem" is not a term anyone would attribute to Nokia. Nokia has its problems but ego is not one of them.
Symbian STILL owns 35ish % of the worlds's mobile phone market. All you freaks have been saying Nokia is dead for 3 years now. Guess what? They are still kicking and they STILL own the vast majority of the phoen market. And you know what OS that is? I'll give you a hint "S-Y-M-B-I-A_". I left the last letter for you to fill out. Try not to sweat too much figuring it out eh?
If you're going to make statements as if you think you know what you are talking about, then I think you should actually *know* what you are talking about rather than take a reverse dump just because you can.
Dropping Symbian makes sense, but then doing your own OS? Why not focusing on making the best Android handset samsung? It's not like Android is costing you a ton of money, as in doing R&D of your own OS. I don't know. It's as if Samsung has too much free time or something.
@pika,
Time will tell.
considering how craptastic their touchwiz UI and feature phone OS's are, I'm not very excited.
Why Samsung wants their own OS not Android?
Everybody has the same hardware and design of phones is basically big screen with or without hardware keys. So the essence of smartphones is OS ... If Symbian ship's captain is Nokia. You can quess who is steering Android ship ...
Only loosers are eating from someone's hand. Android is good for companies like Motorola and SonyEricsson ... It's their last change.
The difference between Symbian and Android is that Nokia only have a place on the Symbian Foundation board, and so get to *influence* Symbian's direction, just like the other members; while only Google get to influence Android's direction. Of course, you can take Android and make your own thing from it, but then you've just fragmented Android, which is not good for anyone in the long term (IMO).
Also, some people here seem to be confusing Symbian with Nokia. Nokia used to own Symbian (briefly), but don't any more.
Also, some here seem to be confusing Symbian with a user interface. I can understand that from people who use Microsoft Windows where the UI is integral with the OS, but that's not the case with Symbian - until the Symbian Foundation, there were several UIs that ran on top of Symbian OS.
Good thing Samsung isn't giving up on the Windows Mobile platform. If they could do some wonders like HTC does, I'd be interested in getting it.
Just because Symbian isn't popular in the US doesn't mean it's not a good OS.
It's a good OS, but old. Just like Winmo. Both need a complete overhaul from scratch. At least MS is doing Winmo 7. I don't see S60 going anywhere, other than it becoming a "dumb"phone OS and Nokia using Maemo for the high end.
@Pika,
i guess, you are not aware of the overhaul going on with Symbian currently.
The video is linked to, was an example of that. More to come next year.
Hary, if you want to spam pro-symbian messages here you're certainly entitled to do so. But its going to take more than that laggy, un-innovative video you posted to impress people.
@Steve,
I am not spamming anything here. IF you don't like Symbian its fine. You expressed your opinion.
I expressed my opinion. Btw, my number of msgs was less than pika's. did you say anything to him?
So express your opinion if you want, else go in den and sleep.
Actually, Pika posted 4 messages and you've posted 5 ;p
i would be embarrassed to have a seat on the symbian foundation board right now.
Thats exactly the reason, you are not there but embarrassing urself here.
see hary that's dumb, if you paid a bit of attention, you'd realize that he meant that comment at samsung, since they have a seat in the symbian foundation. quit being a dumb fanboy and lrn2facts
Oh man not another phone OS...
"Samsung Bada is not OS, that's SDK for Touch Wiz II/III and creating apps/services for Samsung phones" - Mobile-Review's Eldar Murtazin http://twitter.com/eldarmurtazin/status/5605408404
So, is this just weird press? Or will the TouchWiz thingy still run on top of Symbian while being developed with Bada? (Jesus, all those names)
rather, I would prefer Windows 7 based mobile phone, given the today's H/W capabilities (minus battery), I wish, I have a mobile with Windows 7, with a PICO projector, that I can use as a desktop as well as a mobile. Or at lower price point, enough to connect to a LCD display, wireless keyboard..you know what I'm saying..
Desktop on the GO...with mobile
Still...working on development of your own OS means expending capital and energy separate from creating devices that win markets over...I see another Palm WebOS in the making.
RIP. The Omnia HD is a decent phone.
Jup, got one here in my pocket.
Great screen, great build quality, fast. And with a cooked rom on it (see forums.samsungomniai8910omnia.com) quite usable too.
Symbian in it's current form isn't a great OS, but Samsung messed it up real badly concerning integration and support.
Bada isn't a new OS, and Samsung changes their platform strategy every six months. I wouldn't be launching new Symbian phones before the Symbian^4 (new Qt-based UI version) release is out in early 2011 if I were them either (and I work at the Symbian Foundation). Of course they're still keeping an eye on the platform evolution and that's why they still have a seat on the board.
It's dropping Symbian? You mean after their long Symbian tradition of around 3-5 phones?
Well i guess i'll survive, as an Omnia HD owner i am dropping Samsung for ever. Nokia ftw
I wish spammers would die... slowly... in their own _ _ _ _ .
Makes perfect sense -- Asia is a huge market possibly quite different from Europe/America, so why not try to gain a foothold there. US/European companies tend to localize to Asia last, so Samsung has a chance there. I doubt this will be huge in the West, but who cares. East has way more people.
I'm ready to see it already!
Too bad this wasn't ready for the Samsung Moment.
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=8221
Digitimes has got it wrong, fortunately.