UPDATE: As Sven points out, this could have been done to avoid any hurdles in the EU region but Samsung too, has applied for the Bada and Vita OS trademarks.

Going through recent trademark filings from Samsung, I discovered an interesting filing. A trademark by the name of “VITA OS” was filed by Samsung at the USPTO. Interestingly, this name was filed for registration a day after Samsung filed for Bada OS.

So what could Vita OS possibly be? If we speculate, it could be an altogether new OS, presumably for smartphones since bada is there for feature phones or could be that Samsung zeroed down on two names for their feature phone OS but decided to go with bada. Second guess sounds more reasonable but you never know.

A website Samsungvita.com is also registered under their name.

PS: If you know something about Vita that you can share, feel free to reach us.

Take it as pure speculation for now but there are compelling reasons that Samsung will show bada phone (or phones) at MWC next month. Samsung’s CES showcase was more of televisions (including 3D), displays, cameras and netbooks. But MWC is a mobile-centric event and since JK Shin, the President and Head of Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics will be addressing the media prior to MWC to outline Samsung Mobile’s future prospects, there’s a very high probability that bada phone will make its presence felt.

Also, the first bada phone is expected to be launched in first half of this year, making MWC the best time to show the phone to the world.

Samsung bada’s press event was nothing more than a showcase of what bada can do but this technical session meant only for developers and content partners reveals a lot more. Check out the long video here.

Here are few more screenshots of Samsung’s bada OS. As like the previous time, these screens also hint at touch friendliness. However, it will be interesting to see its responsiveness in real world. Another thing that has come to light is that bada phones won’t support multi-tasking. bada phones support one application policy, which means when a user will launch a bada application, the phone will terminate the running app to initiate the second one.

Few bada OS screenshots have found their way out on the net and it gives pleasure to see that it won’t be as uninteresting and not-so-revealing as the recent bada announcement. The UI seems finger friendly and will be able to exploit other interesting features like multitouch support, motion sensing and more.

First bada powered phone is expected in first half of next year.

Also read: Thoughts on Samsung bada

Samsung’s unveiling of bada mobile OS platform today was a disappointment. Nothing substantial was revealed nor did Samsung have a single bada prototype on display. But more importantly, the question in everyone’s mind was “Do we need another mobile platform?”

Well, if you consider Samsung’s monetary goal, then yes. To cut the long story short, bada would enable Samsung to get more developers to create apps for their phones that will be sold on their Application Store and in return, earn revenue for world’s second largest handset maker.

Samsung has already sold 40m touchscreen phones in 2009 with the majority of share coming from non-smartphones aka feature phones. Now though these speak volumes, the profit margin of each feature phone sold is considerably less compared to a smartphone.

With lesser margin to earn through hardware sales, it basically comes down to the software. Samsung’s current proprietary OS didn’t allow them to cash in on the app front (Samsung’s latest research also confirms that) and although Samsung opened up its TouchWiz UI to accept new widgets, it seemingly didn’t generate enough interest to lure most developers.

This is where a new mobile platform comes into picture. Bada is created to achieve three goals – address developer’s woes by opening up the platform and allowing devs to take advantage of platform’s various features; generate revenue for Samsung through sale of apps on its platform and additionally give user to do more on his feature phone.

Samsung’s mantra here seems “keep developers happy, the company and consumers will automatically be happy” and I think if Samsung hits the right notes with devs, bada can easily make it through. Most of feature phone users doesn’t care which OS powers their phone until they can satisfactorily exploit the usability of their phone.

So what do you think? Will bada work? Let us know in the comments.

Within few minutes, Samsung will showcase its bada platform to the world along with few partnership announcements with Twitter, Blockbuster, CAPCOM, EA Mobile and Gameloft.

The bada’s UI will be based on Samsung’s TouchWiz that is already being used in most of the Samsung devices. Bada will allow developers to develop apps by taking advantage of different features like motion sensing, web and flash control, face detection, various integrated sensors etc. Samsung claims bada is the most open and configurable operating system till date and will enable developers to create wide range of applications.

Apart from that, Samsung has also introduced bada Developer Challenge that will give a chance to devs to win up to US$2.7m in reward prizes by developing apps and using various features of bada platform.

Samsung will also conduct bada Developer Days starting in its homeland this month and in San Francisco and London next month.

Yesterday, a Digitimes report claimed Samsung dropping Symbian from its mobile portfolio and today we’ve got a different word straight from Samsung’s HQ. Samsung says the report is not in line with their smartphone strategy and will continue to build Symbian phones.

Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile. To provide more choices to meet consumers’ many different tastes and preferences, we will continue our ‘multi-OS’ strategy. Our policy is to provide what consumers want when they need.

Symbian phones were always a minority in Samsung’s portfolio and it looks like they’ll give it a complete miss by next year. Senior VP, Don Joo Lee confirmed that Samsung will quit making Symbian handsets and instead adopt its own Bada OS that was unveiled yesterday. Though, Samsung will continue making WinMo and Android OS handsets.

Samsung also claimed to top 200 million handsets in 2009 with an aim to reach up to 20 percent by next year.

Samsung announced to launch a new open mobile platform in December. Dubbed as Bada, the name signifies “ocean” in Korean which conveys the unlimited potential of the new platform. The new OS is aimed at developers as well as mobile operators because of the easy creation and customization of applications.

As for consumers, Samsung claims the platform will give a fun and diverse mobile experience with its sophisticated and attractive UI.

Developers will be able to get their hands on the SDK after an official event in London that will be held in December.

Samsung Bada