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Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will launch its bada open mobile platform in December. According to the company, it will enable developers to create applications for new Samsung mobile phones while providing a fun and diverse mobile experience for consumers. Samsung chose the name “bada,” which means “ocean” in Korean, to convey what it calls the limitless variety of potential applications that can be created with the new platform.

Based on its experience in developing previous proprietary platforms on its mobile phones, Samsung feels it can create the new platform and provide opportunities for developers. The company also says bada is simple for developers to use, particularly for applications that use Web services. The platform’s user interface can be transferred into a sophisticated and attractive UI design for developers as well, Samsung says.

Samsung’s goal is to extend smart-phone applications beyond smart-phone models as users adopt bada. The company says that bada offers a platform that’s east for mobile operators to integrate so they can provide unique and differentiated services to their customers. Samsung established its mobile application ecosystem through the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator in 2009 and the Samsung Application Seller Site, followed by the Samsung Application Store. 

As consumer demand for service-based applications is growing, bada includes integrated support for service-oriented features to enable the development of connected applications. Developers also can implement various service features in applications without the high learning curve required by previous platforms, Samsung says. Its extensible core functions include a dialer, messaging, and address book across applications.

Currently, Samsung plans on launching the first bada-powered mobile phone and the sale of bada applications through the Samsung Application Store in the first half of 2010. It also anticipates multiple models of bada-powered mobile phones and the availability of the Samsung Application Store in about 30 countries, including France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, in the second half of 2010.