Samsung's Enemies List Indicates Mobile OS in the Works

South Korean electronics giant, Samsung SSNLF sells more smartphones than anyone. According to market research firm, Strategy Analytics, the company shipped 319.8 million units in 2013, most of them powered by Google GOOG’s Android operating system.

Perhaps not for long.

Recently released documents seemed to indicate that the company was trying to develop its own competing mobile OS, according to AppleInsider. Last week during the Apple AAPL vs Samsung trial, “highly confidential” Samsung documents contained an enemies list.

At the top Enemy #1, of course, was Apple. Second on the list, was HTC, Samsung’s supposed Android market sharing partner. In the documents, however, Samsung described HTC as less of a “partner” and more of a “key challenge.”

Related: Samsung's Latest Anti-Apple Weapon: The Galaxy S5

Samsung named itself Enemy #3, mostly due to product delays, which Samsung blamed, in part, on its inability to deliver major Android OS software updates and maintenance releases. The problem, Samsung said, was complicated by the company’s broad range of products.

At the end of the day, Samsung said, it found it more difficult to keep up with Google’s Android updates than either Motorola or HTC did. As a result, Samsung has continued to ship outdated Android phones in its low-end “carrier friendly good enough” lineup, which makes up the majority of Samsung’s sales volume.

All this led to Samsung’s identification of Enemy #4, Google and its Android operating system. Acknowledging that developing a third mobile platform would not be an easy task saying, "what matters most in adoption” is “market penetration."

So far, Samsung’s efforts to develop a competing mobile operating system have not resulted in a solid winner, though there has been progress. The company abandoned its Bada Linux project and eventually merged it with a similar platform developed with Intel and Nokia. The result was Tizen, a mobile OS used in a Samsung watch project. Samsung has said that Tizen could serve as a functional alternative to Android.

Meanwhile, as TechTimes noted, despite the buzz created by the leaked documents, there appeared to be no specific timeline for a new operating system from Samsung. The move could likely take years in order for Samsung to develop, implement, and bring to market a competing system that would be capable of taking on Android and iOS.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco had no position in any mentioned securities.