On the 26th April, the Culture and Tourism Minister of Korea made headlines by giving a briefing at a press conference with an iPad on the glass podium, when previously the government had announced individual purchase of iPads from overseas illegal, excluding industrial experimental use. Since then one iPad per person was legalized and this event was counted as a mild demonstrational use.
Likewise, the release of iPad has been sending waves around the world. In wide scope, iPad is particularly influencing the future of Apple, Old media industries, and consumer patterns.

With the distinguished UX that iPad provides, Steve Jobs has furthered Apple N screen strategic foothold which covers all of Apple’s product lines. This will serve as platform to further the Apple legacy in areas such as SNS, games, finance, and education.

For old media industries in newspapers, magazines, and books, the iPad brings attractive new market possibilities. Through App distribution, old media have found a new window of revenue. With iPad selling 6% more paid Apps than iPhone, and the convenience of direct connection through a touch of an App icon for consumers, old media can gain leverage against free web portal access.

Customers interest in MID(Mobile Internet Device) can also be expected to rise with the level of “Apple awareness”. Apple’s iPod, which had initially been a very niche product, has now become almost the norm. With the media buzz, iconic designs, and commercialized high end technology, Apple fish massive interests that even those non tech-savy mass would take more than a second look at the iPad.

KOREA no iPad?
However, there has been no news of iPad’s launch in Korea, a leading global test-bed for IT. Due to perhaps tight inventory and the fact that Korea is not an English-speaking country, Apple has not considered Korea an urgent target market.

Furthermore like the iPhone, there are usage barriers of iPad even if it enters Korea. Korea lacks much in Apps and content, Korean ebook market scale is less than 100,000 books. There are also matters of privacy policies, and the fact that iPad does not support Flash or Active-X which applies to a major portion of websites in Korea.

Nevertheless, there have been already numerous early adopters who have personally purchased the iPad overseas, but are not be able to have full utilization of its applications in Korea. One of our staff at work had actually brought an iPad he had purchased through a friend in the US, and half of the morning was spent gawking over its features, and its slim and light design. I guess the rest of us will just have to wait in agony.

Last week, I had introduced the SKTelcom’s  ‘IPE’ as one of the three innovative B2B strategies the major telecommunication companies are taking on. On this issue, I am going to further introduce KT’s ‘S.M.ART’ and LGT’s ‘Taltongshin’ (beyond telecom) projects, which seek to create a converging value between telecommunication and other businesses.

KT’s ‘S.M.ART’
KT’s backbone to its smart strategy consists of network, customer support system, and a fusion B2B marketplace solution, which is equipped with its 3W net(WCDMA, Wi-Fi, WiMAX), satellite communications that has been competitive for decades, and a nation-scale wireless customer support .

KT’s SMART strategy offers the ‘Smart (Smart) 6′; six specific sectors that provide specialized services: Smart Enterprise, Smart SOHO/SMB(Small Medium Businesses), Smart Government, Smart Building, Smart Zone, and Smart Green.

Since January, KT has been constructing a maintenance system for Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation, which allows real time maintenance inspection, fault reporting, check-ins and sending of instructions through voice, text, or pictures (video), in 148 stations of Subway Route 5678.

This enable the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation to manage various operational facilities of the subway Line 5678 on real-time with a mobile phone.

LG Telecom Taltongsin (”beyond telecommunication”)
The last to adopt the B2B model, LG has chosen education, utilities, media& advertising, automotive, and healthcare as its main ‘Taltongshin’ target areas. The project is based on the integrative environment of  fixed mobile convergence, convergence of communication and IT solution, and convergence between telecommunication and other industries.

LG Telecom further revealed that it is continuing to negotiate with financial, retail and manufacturing businesses. Hence, LGT is planning to launch a mobile groupware that enhances task productivity with functions such as e-mail and e-payment to attract the corporate market.

The innovative B2B models of these industries are sure to bring telecommunication to the next level, and further boost their prospects for overseas expansion.

Celebrities are no longer mere models for game promotion. Rather, they have been created into actual game characters that run through the game. Korea’s Asian pop star “Rain” had been first to be embedded as a character in the popular FPS game “Sudden Attack,” in December 2008. Rain’s game character has reaped about $210 million in sales, which projected the beginning of a new trend in the gaming industry. Following up, popular Korean boy group “Big Bang,” which includes five characters, did even better with $280 million in sales within 9 months of character release in Sudden Attack. Girl group “2NE1” also in Sudden Attack, had $210 million in sales like Rain, but actually scored the highest monthly sales. The upcoming next celebrity character on Sudden Attack has been decided as Hollywood model Jessica Gomez.

Left Korean Asia Pop star ‘Rain’, Right Hollywood star ‘Jessica Gomez’

The transformation of celebrities from simply being models into actual characters in the game itself has given gamers a new surreal attraction, and also created a new trend amongst gamers and the gaming industry. Furthermore, the game companies have positive outlook with this new marketing step, which they expect will further permeate along with the Korean wave (popularity of Korean culture in Asia) in Southeast Asia, Japan and China. Much can be expected with this new marketing model, perhaps even a new wave of gamers. I am sure lots of gamers will be eager to have a chance to play as Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba next on Sudden Attack.