Under-threat Samsung fires up bada 2.0

Thriving and patent-besieged Korean tablet and smartphone maker Samsung has unveiled its new mobile operating system, bada 2.0, destined not for Galaxy but Wave devices.

Bada, which in Korean means “ocean” and “seashore”, had already received “significant global sales”, according to Samsung, which also announced its bada software development kit (SDK) on Thursday. 

The operating system will be deployed with three new Wave phones it planned to release later in 2011. 

The SDK and updated OS came as patent pressure mounts on Google’s Android platform, while Samsung -- now the second largest smartphone maker -- separately stares down the barrel of an intercontinental design battle against smartphone and tablet king, Apple, over the former's Galaxy devices.

Adding to Samsung's woes, on Thursday, the largest mobile carrier in the US, Verizon, revealed that it would not sell Samsung's Galaxy S II, but declined to explain why, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The device was the subject of a Dutch preliminary injunction which blocked its sale in much of western Europe, while courts in Germany and Australia decide the Galaxy Tab's future  in those regions.

Samsung's bada operating system was unveiled in February, with the latest version including multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, near field communications and voice recognition.

It also offered “improved support” for Flash and HTML 5 and in-app ads, but did not mention more controversial in-app payments, currently the subject of litigation by alleged “patent troll” Lodsys against Android and iOS developers. 

In May, Samsung had shipped nearly 3.5 million bada devices over three months, according to analyst firm Canalys.

The figure paled in comparison to its total Android-dominated shipments of 19.2 million in Q2 2011, but bada shipments nonetheless had tripled over a year, according to the analyst firm.