While Google is rapidly advancing with its development of the Android , SK Telecom has joined seven other companies that have recently joined the LiMo Foundation with Linux Mobile.  Other notables among the new members are Mozilla and Verizon Wireless who is one of the most notable absentees on Google’s Open Handset Alliance.

Google has been making headlines by finally defining their team of judges for Android, and has generally been more publicized. US carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless had not joined, and while AT&T seems to be showing preference for Android, Verizon has now joined LiMo.

On the Korean front SK Telecom has joined with their competitor KTF in the LiMo Foundation, as well as Korean handset producers LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics. LG and Samsung are also part of Android, therefore giving them and interesting position in the evolution of the industry. Another interesting position is that of LG Telecom who have recently expressed interest in Android but have yet to decide, and with their affiliate LG Electronics being on both sides it will be an interesting choice.

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Today I came upon the news that Microsoft is to invest $147 million in South Korea over the next 5 years, they also announced earlier that they would make a strategic alliance with Hyundai Motors that involves an investment of $113 million dollars while Hyundai will provide $166 million dollars.

The plan was unveiled by Bill Gates during his talks with President Lee Myung Bak and he described Korea as a crucial business partner. This investment also involves the creation of a game development center that looks to take advantage of Korea’s massive gaming industry and quite probably in online gaming areas. On Hyundai’s side the investment is, in part, to develop a new in-vehicle music and entertainment system. The plan is an interesting example in foreign companies looking more and more towards Korea in some areas such as I have mentioned before in this blog.

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As anyone who currently lives in Korea can see, the two larger telecom companies have spent a lot of money promoting the 3G features and things such as Video Call as the main application, but LG has opted for developing mobile internet. LG unveiled “OZ”, earlier this month and offer a full browser experience for its near 8 million subscribers, this is compared to the closed portal system that the other operators offer, and at a much lower cost which is around 6 dollars (6,000 won) per month.

LG’s bet on mobile internet may just provide them an edge in the market, despite having lost in the initial acquisition of 3G licenses, this obligated them to search for a different strategy which maybe the key to their success.

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As reported by  Yonhap News, Japanese video-game giant Nintendo Co. plans to finally release the “Wii” in South Korea. Trying to gain market share with respect to its competitors Sony and Microsoft, they will release the console about 1 year and a half after its initial release in the U.S. and Japan.
 

This clearly reveals some of the characteristics of the Korean Video Games market. Although widely know as a country on the cutting edge in terms of gaming, the Korean market is composed mainly on online gaming from pc’s and relative to the most other countries consoles are not that popular. The reasons for this are diverse, having to do with Korean infrastructure, policies and even social characteristics. With online gaming becoming more and more popular there should be increased interaction between Korean online game developers, and traditional game giants from abroad.
 

If you are interested in the subject, my company Veyond will soon release a Korean online gaming report, please stay tuned.

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SK Telecom has invested the modest sum of 2 Million USD in an American based online video animation company Fix8. The company has a technology H.E.A.R.T. (Human Expression Analysis and Rendering Technology), that allows the digitalization of human movement and is capable of animating it. This is for use on webcams and other devices, and they are developing the technology for application in SK’s 3D avatars. 

This seems to be a very inexpensive investment for SK and the applications are multiple: mobiles, Cyworld, etc. This maybe an interesting investment for some SK users who may find the application fun, but is even more appealing for the focus of this article as an example of the traditional roles being reversed. SK being the largest player in Korean telecom investing in a relative startup in the US, the move also plays well to SK using their knowledge of their market to develop technologies that would be attractive for their customers.

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This acquisition by SK Telecom who is already the dominant player in mobiles in Korea, has caused the other incumbents to rethink their strategy and plan responses to the situation. KT and KTF have renewed their habitual talks about a merger, given that KTF is SK Telecoms main competition. KT already owns a major stake in KTF, yet a wide scale integration effort would seriously affect the telecom landscape in Korea.

The company formed from this merger would be able to offer a wide array of services, yet the issue continues to be on a more general level, raising anti-trust issues. The large players in the sector are swallowing up the smaller players and this raises questions on the competitiveness of the industry. Although nothing has been decided yet, there are a lot of things happening in the industry, with convergence of technologies, M&A’s among other issues.

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Koreans have long embraced the benefits of online auction websites, and since 2000 when GMarket entered the marketplace the website has had great success. It is now considered a reference when looking to buy something online. Such has been the success of this company that they went public on June 29th, 2006 on Nasdaq and its market cap stands at about 1.16 billion dollars.

Gmarket’s success has not gone unnoticed by some other larger players, sparking rumors that Yahoo might choose to buy the company, among other rumors. Now, SK Telecom has entered the game and created the open market that is www.11st.co.kr, combining this with some of the other businesses that SK already participates in we can possibly find many synergies that will make 11th street a credible threat to Gmarket.

The market dynamics in Korea, in which traditional, large and powerful players compete with new innovative actors, and combined with the convergence of different sectors and industries, may provide a vision of things to come, as we can see SK is busy with this and their acquisition of Hanaro Telecom which is already creating a lot of waves in the TMT sector in Korea.

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The Mobile World Conference kicked off today in Barcelona and much is expected out of many of the worlds top companies. Today, the presentation by Korean giant LG on their LTE, or Long Term Evolution, technology demonstrated once again the innovative nature of this company.

This technology is in the process of being standardized for the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and is what will probably be applied for the next generation of handsets in the near future. LG presented some specs: the download speed for videos is 60mbps, and 40mbps for uploads, on anything from HD videos to other types. This is 60 and 80 times faster than HSDPA for downloads and uploads respectively.

The presentation showed some UGC videos, as well as HD content. This was similar to last years presentation, but in only one year, the download speed has been tripled and upload speed doubled. This is just one more way in which LG shows their technological strength.

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On February 17th, Korean company Gretech, will broadcast the Star Invitational games through GomTV. The Star Invitationals are a Starcraft e-sports tournament hosted here in Korea. The tournament is sponsored by LG, Intel and Gretech, and will be broadcast live in English as well. This along with a fully functional website with game and player info in order to give foreign viewers a better understanding about the game.

Gretech is a very interesting company, that’s main businesses are internet services, software, and information appliances. They are better known for GomTV which is turning into a full media video service which has mainly catered to the tastes of the domestic market. They are now attempting to spread the craze for e-sports to other countries in and give a glimpse into Korea.

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Almost anywhere in the world you travel to, you should be able to locate public payphones fairly easily. In Korea, payphones are still to be found, yet almost without exception they are not being used. They stand almost as if they were monuments or relics, yet without the esthetic quality.

In Korea, given the level of mobile phone use, we find that the public phone industry is in great danger. Being a declining business, Korean telecom giant, KT, spun-off the public pay phone division, which is now KTLINKUS. Public phones are not used by the Korean public, and in its new attempt to garner some business KTlinkus has decided to let users pay for public phone calls with their T-Money (public transportation) card, and there are also plans to make it compatible with other types of cards. This will make it a little more convenient to use, but it is yet to be seen whether a measure like this will ever be enough to save the public phone.

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