Samsung kicked off its first ever developers conference, SDC13, in San Francisco yesterday. Currently the South Korean technology giant’s hardware flies off the shelves but compared to competitors Apple and Microsoft the software side of its business is relatively small. Samsung management are now making a push to increase differentiation of Samsung products through device convergence, better software integration and enhanced software services.
Gregory Lee, President of Samsung Telecommunications America, delivered the introductory keynote to 1,300 attendees at the SDC13. Getting quickly to the point he said there are two main reasons software professionals should develop for Samsung:
- The first point concerned the ubiquity of Samsung smart connected devices around the world. “We have tremendous reach around the world,” in almost every country Samsung is No.1 in smartphones, Mr Lee told us.
- His second point was of convergence “across all Samsung devices,” including tablets, smartphones, PCs and smart TVs, even enterprise. A familiar ‘develop once – publish everywhere’ promise.
In addition to the above two points Lee stressed that Samsung is just getting started with its software development convergence plans and that if you can bring popular software to its platforms now – “your work can have a tremendous upside”.
If Samsung’s plans work out then the added software convergence between Samsung devices will help spur customer loyalty as Samsung devices will work more seamlessly with each other. Also new software will make more of unique Samsung hardware like the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and S Pen stylus.
To this end Samsung are releasing five, new software development kits (SDKs) aimed at both boosting and simplifying development for Samsung multi-screen, gaming, mobiles, smart TVs and enterprise.
On mobiles Samsung wants developers to make more of the additional possibilities stemming from the S Pen and multi-window functionality. A new Twitter client which is multi-window enabled was shown at the conference allowing ‘Note’ users to browse and Tweet at the same time, for example.
Looking at gaming on Samsung devices the company has partnered with Unity to allow gaming on your TV powered by your Samsung tablet or smartphone. A Gamepad attachment to help make such gaming more comfortable was also shown off on the stage.
The Samsung multiscreen SDK is based on a cloud publishing systems and “includes APIs for one-touch discovery and pairing of devices, which allows for content sharing across devices”. Samsung also released a new Smart TV SDK and Knox SDK for security and BYOD systems management.
The second and final day of SDC13 is due to kick off shortly.
Samsung Developers Conference Keynote, Day 1
