14 DAY TRIAL // South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung recently announced the launch of a new application development contest for the builders of software solutions for its bada mobile operating system. According to the company, the new bada Developer Challenge is set to prove the biggest such contest of the year, as it involves prizes of $2,700,000 (USD), $300,000 (USD) of which should be awarded to the winner.
According to the company, “registration starts from May 17 and the contest runs for six months with two rounds: - The first round is about three months long and you need to develop applications that run in the simulator environment included in the SDK (Software Development Kit) for the bada platform. After the first round, 300 Wave phones will be provided for the second round contestants. - The rest of the period is for the second round, dedicated for running and optimizing applications for the real device.”
The Samsung bada Champion should receive the aforementioned $300,000 prize, while category winners (excluding the Samsung bada Champion) are expected to receive a great deal of awards, including 7 first place prizes of $100,000; 8 second place prizes of $60,000 each; and 8 third place prizes of $40,000 each.
There will be 10 prizes of $30,000 that will go to special winners (“The Simplest is the best”, awarded to developers who write small and highly optimized applications), as well as 56 prizes of $8,000 for the device phase winners (Excluding the Samsung bada Champion, Category & Special Winners). Samsung also plans on offering 300 Samsung Wave devices to the simulation phase winners, and says that there are more opportunities to win available for developers living in China, France, Philippine, Poland, Russia, Singapore, or Vietnam.
The bada Developer Challenge seems to be shaping up as an appealing competition for mobile app builders, especially since Samsung is determined to invest so much on luring developers towards its new operating system. Those interested in the contest will have to download the bada SDK (available from Softpedia too, via this link), and head over to Samsung's website to register to the bada Developer Challenge.