Samsung has never been religious about operating systems, often supporting many platforms at once, but its market weight still makes it hugely important to the success of any OS.
This has been seen in the major boost it gave Android sales when it finally got serious about smartphones with the Galaxy S. But despite the success of that handset, it seems that Samsung will focus mainly on Windows Phone 7, rather than Android, in 2011.
According to a report on iMobile.cn, Samsung plans for almost two-thirds of its high-end models next year to run WP7, even though senior executives just a few months ago said that they would prioritize on Android. At this stage, WP7 had not yet hit the market, and Samsung had decided to move away from Symbian.
Samsung insiders said there was no pullback from Android, but it would greatly expand its smartphone ranges overall next year. It may be that the firm believes it can steal an early march in WP7 and dominate it more easily than Android, although previously HTC and LG have been the closest Microsoft partners.
However its range balances out, the vendor will continue to use its scale to create a wide range of different models targeted carefully at different user profiles. Its own bada platform is also reported to be faring better than many had expected.
When bada was launched at the start of the year, single-vendor operating systems seemed to be on their way out, but since then the market has fragmented again, with several new options such as MeeGo and webOS 2.0 on the horizon.
Original Article URL: