It’s always essential to come out of the gates knowing that your mobile platform has what it takes to keep users interested in it. So far there are some hints that Samsung’s own Bada mobile platform is getting some rave responses from global mobile operators; according to Kim Hyung, vice president for strategic planning at Samsung. Samsung expects to place Bada in meeting consumer needs with a speedier and flexible operating system than other smartphone operating systems. The number two mobile phone maker expects to see 40 different kinds of smartphones to be released this year – although they didn’t state any official numbers as to how many of them will be Bada-based smartphones. There are even rumors about them releasing a Bada-based smartphone through SK Telecom as early as July – with the rest of the world getting treated much earlier to a Bada phone sometime in April or May. As for the growing popularity of the Android platform, Samsung expects to release a new model with Android 2.1 on board after releasing four models to date with the platform. Finally, Windows Mobile gets the least attention because Mr. Kim hinted to further reductions in the dependency on Microsoft; although Samsung has no plans on dropping Windows Mobile altogether.
via Telecoms Korea

With so many cell phone manufacturers jumping into the creation of their own mobile platform, getting some support from developers will be crucial in keeping it afloat. Samsung’s Bada operating system needs a common place to start off so it’ll attract would be developers that are looking to work with them. Bada’s developers oriented site has gone live and aims to offer assistance to developers so they become experts in the development of the newly introduced platform. There’s going to be extensive reference materials and tutorial content needed to produce an application throughout the site. In addition, there will be useful information about Bada events which developers can attend to meet others that will ultimately aid in gearing the platform to grow. Although it’s entering a market that‘s already saturated, being able to help out developers early on will ensure some life to this new platform.
source: Bada

It seems Samsung is about to deliver yet another handset for its Corby line, reportedly called Samsung Corby Beat M3710 (obviously music-centric). By the looks of it, the Corby Beat is almost identical to the Samsung Lindy, which is exclusively available in Portugal. The Beat has the same design and specs (including a 2.8” touchscreen, 3MP camera and Wi-Fi), except that it is expected to lack 3G support. One thing that is interesting about it however is that Mobile-review’s Eldar Murtazin has shared via Twitter that the handset will come with a Game Store that will be a feature present on all bada phones. It is said that all the games inside it will be Java-based. According to Mobile@Mail.ru, the Samsung Corby Beat M3710 will be available this February at a retail price of about $300, although it isn’t certain on which markets.
source: Twitter and Mobile@Mail.ru (translated) via UnwiredView

At the presentation dedicated to their new operating system bada, Samsung disclosed just tiny fragments of the OS interface and it wasn´t until the last week when pictures revealing more about it surfaced on the Internet. More images have appeared out of nowhere and we can see what the phone contacts, main menu, wireless manager and phone gallery would probably look like. The interesting thing is that the pictures of the main menu and phone contacts show a relatively well-concealed slider menu similar to the one that Android features. Unfortunately, we don´t have a clue about its functionality or what might be hidden behind it.
source: GSMarena Blog

BlackBerry users on Verizon used to be able to choose between Google and Bing as the search engine of choice on their device. But it looks like Big Red and the gang at Redmond entered into some kind of agreement that now allows only Bing to be the search engine of choice on Verizon branded BlackBerry phones. That doesn’t prevent someone from typing in the Google URL on the ‘Berry browser, but it does mean that when configuring your browser, you cannot choose BlackBerry or Wikipedia like you used to be able to. Sure, like we said, you can still punch in the URL and get to where you want to go to, but it will take some extra steps whereas previously you used to be able to just make one click to get to Google or Wikipedia. Of course, you wouldn’t expect this to be the case with the DROID or DROID ERIS as both of those Android devices use Google’s open source OS. But for BlackBerry users on Verizon, looks like you’ve been sold for some pieces of silver.
source: BGR

The official website of bada reveals the first cell phone equipped with the operating system is to roll out in the first half of 2010 and the number of bada-based handsets should increase to several in the second half of the year. We do hope we get to see the first bada device soon, perhaps at MWC 2010 or why not even earlier?

source: Samsung Flash Wiki via GSMarena Blog