Role Division by Industry, University, Research Inst. Required
The domestic IT (information technology) industry is forecast to show signs of recovery after bottoming out last year. It is commonly thought that steady growth in the IT industry is more urgent than anything else for the purpose of attaining the national goal of $20,000 per-capita GNP.
Korea's IT industry is a leader in the global market at present owing to the nation's high-speed Internet services. Global enterprises consider the Korean market as a test-bed to check the marketability of their new products.
However, looking closely at the domestic industry, we know that most domestic IT infrastructures are at the mercy of foreign concerns. Therefore, industry experts stress the industry should endeavor to develop core technology to ensure substantial growth in the industry.
The number of domestic companies holding core technology is very small compared with Japan and the U.S. Basic technology capability is very poor and applied technology is focused on excessively, so resulting in a blunting of the domestic technological edge.
This being the situation, source technologies have been developed one after another in the digital and mobile sectors in recent years. The activities of mobile start-up companies are particularly significant.
This article is intended as an overview of the development of domestic core technology and what government and industry should do in the future to develop core technology.
Core Tech. Insures Business Survival for Holders
Measures to Upgrade Tech. Edge Urgently Needed
Companies holding source (core) technology can well survive economic downturns since royalties continue to be paid. Source technology is technology that is integral for the production of a product. It is also original, not relying on any other patent or copyright and has the potential to create a multiplicity of applied technologies. Since the technological revolution can only be achieved through source technology, securing such technology insures survival for the developer.
As such, the companies that have original technology survive longer in the jungle of the business world being more competitive than those don't have. Those countries where firms have a large number of original technology developers have greater national competitiveness. In the U.S., MS, Qualcomm and Intel have earned enormous amounts of royalties for their technology and contributed to national IT development. Japanese industry has the most competitive parts technology in the world. This is why domestic industry should make more effort to develop source technology, however painful it may be.
According to a recent Korea Development Bank (KDB) report, 'Korea-China-Japan Technology Competitiveness Analysis on Major Industries' Korea outranked China, but lags behind Japan by two to three years in major industries.
What's worse, by 2010, China will be abreast with Korea in petrochemicals, consumer electronics, telecom devices and semiconductors, and Korea will be close to Japan, resulting in sharp narrowing of the technology gap between the three rivals.
Accordingly, measures to upgrade technology competitiveness should be taken, such as source technology development in core parts and materials as well as pursuing industrial restructuring.
Focusing on mobile Internet and satellite digital media broadcasting (DMB) and other state-of-the-art sectors will be the key to achieving pre-eminence in technology development. To survive increasingly intense global competition, the KDB recommended securing source technology in key parts and material sectors. It pointed out that strategic picking of key parts, materials, and consequent participation by end-user industries plus tighter cooperation with technology originating countries will help advance national competitiveness.
According to a recent survey by the Korea Industrial Technology Association (KOITA), some 5,000 domestic companies paid as much as $2.721 billion for technology royalties in 2002 alone. Of this, $296 million was channeled to Qualcomm of the U.S. for the use of its original codedivision multiple access (CDMA) technology.
