Platform powered by deCarta
Samsung today unveiled “bada”, its new mobile ecosystem and Smartphone development platform that will enable developers to create applications for thousands of new Samsung mobile phones.
According to a survey published by Samsung, 34% of European users of mainstream handsets, who have not downloaded an application before, would be interested in travel and navigation apps. To help developers fulfill this demand, Samsung has included powerful geospatial APIs in its bada development platform, thanks to an agreement with deCarta.
“LBS is now one of the fastest growing sectors in mobile applications and we believed it was a vital component for bada”, said Dr Ho Soo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics.
Free "geo-toolkit"
Under the terms of the agreement between deCarta and Samsung, application developers on the Samsung bada platform will have access to deCarta’s Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that invoke a complete set of geospatial services such as maps, mobile local search, vehicle and pedestrian routing, geocoding and reverse geocoding. These services are built on deCarta’s high-volume Hosted Web Services (HWS) geospatial platform and will be provided at no cost to the developers.
At this stage Samsung has not yet stated which company (likely to be NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas) would provide map data to the platform. Industry sources indicate that there is a cutthroat battle between the two global map providers to have their cut into this major contract.
bada further confirms the trends towards the deployment of geospatial platforms by handset manufacturers and wireless operators themselves. Companies such as Nokia, RIM, Apple, T-Mobile and Vodafone are all trying to tighten together an app store and a development platform that integrate advanced geospatial tools to reduce the time to market for mobile developers.
Samsung bada Developer Challenge
The Korean device manufacturer also introduced the Samsung bada Developer Challenge. The Challenge offers a chance for developers to win a share of a US$2,700,000 prize fund, by using the features of the new bada platform to build a wide variety of applications for bada devices.
“The competition is one of the largest ever for developers of mobile software and is testament to Samsung’s commitment to the new bada platform”, stated Samsung.
Samsung is also set to announce a series of Developer Days to take place across the world during 2010. Open to all developers, the initial events will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco, with more events following as the year progresses.
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