Mobile App Wars: Samsung's New Bada To Take On iPhone, Droid, Verizon

Samsung, one of the top mobile phone providers, said Tuesday that it plans to launch bada in December as a way to encourage developers to create applications for the millions of Samsung mobile phones in the market.

The move by Samsung to bring such a software developers kit (SDK) to its mobile platform brings the company in line with similar moves by its mobile device competitors.

Apple, which already has about 100,000 iPhone apps ready to be downloaded, in September said that over two billion apps for the iPhone and iTouch have been downloaded so far.

In July, Verizon used its first-ever Verizon Developer Community conference to introduce its V CAST App storefront and portal to more than 500 mobile application developers and related people.

Meanwhile, there are already over 12,000 apps available for the Motorola Droid.

Bada is Samsung's first open mobile platform, after developing a number of proprietary mobile platforms in the past.

The company said the goal with bada is to offer developers an easy-to-integrate mobile platform that will allow mobile operators to provide unique and differentiated services to customers.

Samsung in 2008 launched its Samsung Mobile Innovator platform, and followed that with its Samsung Application Seller Site and Samsung Application Store.

The bada Web site opened on Tuesday, and the official launch of bada is scheduled to happen in London in December, at which time the bada SDK will be available.