Software enables businesses to run more efficiently and be more productive in every way. Korea, who is well aware of this fact and the importance of software, is stepping forward in order to become a software powerhouse. As one way to get there, the Korea Software Enterprise Association hosted the "2011 Public Sector SW Conference " on May 31 at the Renaissance Hotel in Seoul.
Before the conference got underway, governmental officials and members of KOSEA gathered for a round-table meeting to discuss the domestic software industry. They mainly discussed a separation plan for software maintenance rates and oversea expansion support for the Korean software industry.
At the moment, on-demand software and packaged software have the same maintenance rate, this is a disadvantage for the packaged software industry, which needs more of a budget for product development and research. The maintenance rate of foreign-made packaged software such as Oracle and SAP is 15 percent while the domestic packaged software's maintenance rate stays at only 7 percent.
Oh Hae-seok, Special Advisor to the President of IT says, "I know how much the software industry is struggling now. In the matter of the maintenance rate, I promise to actively support for the development of the domestic software industry." He didn't forget to add that domestic software companies are also asked to produce high quality products in order to enter the global market place.
"Since on-demand software and package software are different in product characteristics and maintenance factors, the maintenance rate also needs to be applied by a different criteria," President of KOSEA, Lee Young-sang said.
The Korean software market is inadequate in various ways. Therefore, industry experts are saying the global expansion is a must for domestic software companies to overcome the limitation of the Korean market in order to become a global player. However, most software companies neither have the experience nor the accumulated capital for oversea expansion. Therefore, government support is required.
For practical help on oversea expansion, many support plans were brought to light at the meeting, such as strategic marketing on a governmental level, supporting software events and a governmental certification mark system for targeted software. Thereby, putting more emphasis on these plans will help promote the Korean software industry to the world.
Jang Dae-jin, the director of the Software Policy Division at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy commented, "On the top of that, the Korean market needs to be stronger and grow in order to enter the overseas markets."
KOSEA Public Sector SW Conference 2011 Starts Successfully
"It is such a great day for the Korean software industry. At today's event, the best software companies in the nation will introduce their products and technology. Hopefully everyone here shares a lot of information through the conference," said Lee Young-sang, Chairman of KOSEA.
Jeong Dae-jin, "The power of software is enormous. Korea is still in the early age of software development. However, considering the hard work from many of you, the overall picture for software development is encouraging." There are some difficulties to overcome in order to promote the software industry in Korea, such as the improvement of software companies. The size of the worldwide software is about US$ 1 trillion while the Korean market counts for only 1.8 percent. He emphasized, "In order to move forward there needs to be a strong domestic market."
TimaxSoft talked about the next big trend, cloud computing and the integrated platform, Tibero. Cho Jin-hyung, the manager of the Strategic Planning/Marketing Division at Tibero said, "Tibero is ideal for cloud computing because it supports database infrastructure, which is essential for business competitiveness. Our value proposition for Tibero is centered around flexible data, services, data integration and various management functions."
Next, Park Ho-jin, the principal consultant for the Technical Consulting Team at Altibase, introduced the 'HDB 5' which is a product for real-time data access and analysis at fast speed. He said, "In today's fast paced business world, operational efficiencies demand speed. It is a hybrid relational DBMS that combines in-memory and on-disk data storage in a single relational database. It also gives the customers fast transaction processing speeds, when they handle huge amounts of data."
To work effectively, the third presenter Kim Young-il from Good morning iTech (GiT) suggested desktop virtualization with their product, VMware. It separates a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client-server model of computing. "Desktop virtualization prevents data loss, manages all the data easily and provides a user-centric computing environment. It also gives more space in the office, less power on computing and reduces CO2 emissions, it can be called a green desktop," he explained.
Park Hae-seong, the principal consultant for the Information System Department at H2O System Technology talked about TiTAN (Transaction Request Broker). TiTAN is a TP-Monitor middleware, which connects data between application programs easily and freely for client/server systems.
Hancom, a renowned software company in Korea, introduced a new office suite to help on working smart at the office. This user-friendly product ensures compatibility and features that are up-to-date with the current online trends. Speaking of online trends, Hancom Office now has a blog uploading function, which allows users to upload documents to a blog site or to social network sites such as Twitter with as little as one click. It also synchronizes with smartphones freely, so that the users can work smart on the move.
Lastly, Kaoni explained about ezEKP, which is an enterprise knowledge portal solution for maximizing productivity. "This platform helps to work faster and improve employees' productivity by simplifying the daily process," said Joen Il-kwon, the director of the company.
In the meantime, along with DataStreams, the nation's number one software company, many other software companies came out with their successful cases in utilization.
