Samsung Electronics Co. announced on January 21, 2009 that it has finished consolidating its six business units into a Digital Media and Communication division that focuses on consumer products such as cell phone and televisions, and a Device Solution division that handles displays and memory chips.

Samsung’s restructuring has been aimed to slim down its organization in terms of synergy-driven consolidation to effectively respond to the economic downturn. Samsung had intended to maximize its overall performance by nudging each business unit to compete with each other. As its major products need to converge, however, Samsung has been asked to strengthen its competitiveness through cooperation, not competition within its organization.

One of the expected benefits from the consolidated divisions is a strong possibility that the conflicts Samsung has often faced with major clients of LCD and semiconductors such as Sony and Nokia will be resolved, according to Samsung insider. Samsung is supplying LCD panels to Sony while it is in competition with Sony in the LCD TV market, which often causes confusion among its business units. But now, Samsung has two separate divisions based on components and finished goods that will be operated as if they are independent entities. It is believed that Samsung’s large scale restructuring wil help it cope with the conflicts and boost its businesses.

Even in a tough economy there is a Korean venture firm, Nurien Software, into which nearly 25 million dollars investment has been made from Silicon Valley and China venture capital investors who saw a great growth potential of 3D socail networking service being converged with various services, contents, and softwares.

“Nurien is a new category of social networking service where we can give our users more powerful ways to express their identities by enabling them to create their own unique avatars, fashions, 3D objects, legacy media (such as photo, video, and text) and share them with the world via their own 3D rooms that are accessible from a web-browser as well as our software clients.” www.Nurien.com

Nurien differentiates itself further from other 3D social networking services by utilizing Unreal Engine 3, a development framework for Xbox 360, PlayStarion 3, etc. to transform 3D social networking in order for users to interact, network, and play games with their personalized 3D avatars. The avatars can move realistically and appear more lifelike, showing each component such as earrings, necklaces, ties, gloves, etc. moves independently.     

Also, Nurien has planned to offer social activity applications to help users interact with each other.

“MStar is an online music dance game similar to game interface such as Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution(DDR). Runway is an innovative fashion show application, players will follow certain rules and various themes to create their own clothing line and compete on a virtual fashion show-where other users within the community will watch and vote online. QuizStar is a casual online game and it is a great way to have fun with friends and meet new people.” www.Nurien.com

I wonder whether Nurien, 3D social networking service, will make inroads into online communities like Cyworld in South Korea by creating a new category of a social networking service. For me it would be an exciting experience to have.

KT, South Korea’s largest fixed-line telephone operator and leading WiBro service provider, has been in a dilemma, whether to opt for WiBro(a Korean version of WiMax) or LTE(3GPP Long Term Evolution) as potential 4G mobile technology after its planned merger with KTF.

KTF, Korea Telecom Freetel, is the country’s mobile phone service provider in favor of LTE-based 4G technology in that LTE can be used on its existing 3G networks.

Now KT has been hesitant to push WiBro, fearing the technology may cannibalize KTF’s mobile phone business and knowing LTE technology is most likely to become the mainstream 4G standard. Most experts say that now it may be the right time for KT to decide which path to take for the next generation technology so that KT can take the lead in the 4G mobile market against SK Telecom, South Korea’s leading mobile phone service provider. It would be interesting to watch which one of them will be selected for KT’s 4G strategy afterwards.