Samsung: Tizen And Bada Merge Not Final

Samsung's plans to merge bada with Tizen may not be as clear-cut as first believed, with the company saying it and the other Tizen chiefs are yet to make "a firm decision" on the open-source blend. "We are carefully looking at it as an option to make the platforms serve better for customers" Samsung told AllThingsD, describing bada as a tool for "democratizing smartphone experience in all markets."

"Samsung and other members of Tizen Association have not made a firm decision regarding the merge of bada and Tizen. We are carefully looking at it as an option to make the platforms serve better for customers. As Samsung's essential part of multi-platform portfolio, bada will continue to play an important role in democratizing smartphone experience in all markets. Samsung will also support open source based development and continue to work together with other industry stakeholders" Samsung

Talk of Samsung pushing bada into Tizen began earlier this week, after Tae-Jin Kang, Senior Vice President of Samsung's Contents Planning Team, suggested that the Korean company has "an effort that will merge bada and Tizen." No timescale for the merger was given, but it was indicated that the move would be more about sharing developers than harmonizing what users see at the front-end.

Tizen and bada coders would each use the same SDK and API tools, Kang explained, and existing bada apps would be compatible with Tizen with no modifications required. However, bada would still be kept as the platform for low-cost, developing-markets devices, likely running cheaper single-core processors, while Tizen would challenge the higher-end.

Samsung's involvement in Tizen had prompted questions from the start, with the open-source project – a collaboration between Intel, the remnants of Nokia's MeeGo, Samsung and others – seemingly retreading the same ground that Samsung's existing platforms of choice cover. The company already uses Android, Windows Phone and bada – as well as a proprietary dumbphone OS for its cheaper devices – in a multi-OS push that saw it crack the 300m shipments mark in 2011.