Samsung mobile is in a funny position right now. It has roughly the right hardware for a successful and handset portfolio in most regions, and channels, in the world. It has a differentiated and defensible long term position through its vertical integration to play profitably in the mobile space with and against the rich set of partner/competitors in the industry.
However, the latest round of patent litigation and licensing shake-downs have made something else apparent. One thing Samsung does not seem to have is a meaningful OS strategy. And most particularly an Android strategy. Bada appears to be an afterthought which is sustained primarily as a defensive hedge against Google and the resulting potential for the Android ecosystem to take a sudden and dangerous left turn. It also has ancillary benefit for targeting entry smartphone segments in some regions, although that opportunity will arguable shrink rapidly with the entry of the Chinese manufacturers fighting for Android entry points.
But Bada –and through it Android--should be so much more. It should be the platform overlay to an embedded OS strategy which spans mobile, CE, and durable household goods. It should be Samsung’s ultimate route to consumers , bypassing and single distribution channel (especially carriers), by providing a cross-device ecosystem which plays well in consumer electronics and "Big Box" retailers across all of the product segments where Samsung carries brand—and makes those Samsung products an ecosystem for developers and content owners to leverage.
From Wikipedia: “Bada, as Samsung defines it, is not an operating system itself, but a platform with a kernel configurable architecture, which allows using either a proprietary real-time operating system (RTOS) kernel, or the Linux kernel. According to copyrights displayed by Samsung Wave S8500, it uses code from FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, although other phones might use Linux instead.”
Perfect. Because what Samsung needs from Android is not the user space. It’s an application distribution mechanism, a base of common libraries and (preferably Eclipse based) tools, and the ability for the majority of Android apps to run on it. And Bada has or could have all of those things.
If Samsung were to take Bada on a linux kernel and open source the stack, for all meaningful purposes they have Android without Google. (Or they could just take Android and fork it again to do the same there but that has other relationship risks.)
What would you lose without Google?
Most importantly from the end user perception of mass consumers, search as the keystone of the UI. But wait. There is another industry player dying for search deals, with a brand and service good enough for the majority of consumers, and deep pockets to compete against Google. Yes, Bing. By combining Bada and Bing you defuse Microsoft’s patent move against Samsung in Android, deleverage Google for the first time in your most profitable handset segments, and create a compelling cross-channel play which marries Samsung’s world-class field sales and support with Microsoft’s channel partnering and developer support strengths.
You also lose apps. Or do you? I would argue that beyond phones the UI need not, probably should not, be visual which means you need application distribution in place but don’t have the appropriate apps now anyway. So for hard goods, consumer electronics, and other product areas Samsugn competes in they don't need a touchscreen-UI dependent OS.
For handsets and touchscreens you would maintain the third party apps (as they can still run on a linux based Bada) and only lose the Google proprietary apps such as maps, mail, chat, talk…say, doesn’t Microsoft have some services to bring in those spaces? And doesn't Samsung already have app and content distribution mechanisms (MediaHub, app store, widget store, etc) which could replace Android Market?
And even if you didn’t want to go that route in the OS user space, or at least not at first or not natively to the handset UI, the mass of consumers which Samsung should be targeting as the next wave of adopters are not PC-based in their user experiences and don't care the same about the services Google brings to Android. They don’t want an email-based phone UI which requires a log-in. This is a great insight and success which was the one thing Nokia got right with Ovi and which has since been forgotten. The need is to build a phone UI from the ground up to be the first internet experience, not a translation of a PC-based framework.
There are some huge caveats to this “marketecture” idea. Bada would need a tremendous amount of work, for starters (missing framework elements, moving to OSS, solving wakelocks in a way that embedded developers could work with, creating a kernel which can optimize multicore APs…the list is long and varied). The good news is Bada needs a tremendous amount of work anyway.
Second, this requires cross-business unit coordination which may well be impossible for Samsung to drive from the inside out.
Third, Samsung’s true Achilles heel is that it does not partner as effectively as competitors. Ok, Samsung doesn’t partner effectively period.
Fourth, this is unlikely to work with Qualcomm or other chipset partners and would rely upon in-house chipset roadmaps. That may actually be more of a benefit than a problem but nevertheless creates another large scale effort.
However look at the huge upsides: Break CTS (this one alone would make it worthwhile). Rev share implications with service layer partners. Cross-category product interoperability to make every Samsung device a connected device with remote upgrade capability down to a firmware level. Additional leverage in retail distribution. Absolution from Android patent risk. Ability to differentiate Samsung products through applications and content, across device categories. Integrated OS and hardware roadmap.
Don’t those possibilities sound worth the risk and effort?
