SEOUL, KOREA — The Korea Media Fusion Industry Association and the Smart Media Association jointly held ‘The 2nd Smart Media Workshop’ in the auditorium of the National Information Society Agency located in Seoul’s Deungchon-dong on the October 3rd. Hosted by Dr. Sung-kap Cho, President of the Incheon ICT Industry Promotion Agency, ‘Life over Smart Media’ was the theme of this event. It proceeded in the order of the opening address, the congratulatory message, words of encouragement, the keynote speech and the topic presentations.
Dr. Kim Hyoung-joong, Professor of Korea Univ. and President of the Smart Media Association stated in his opening address, “It is now turning into a world of smart media. For the forthcoming smart environment, we are conducting research in trends, fusion technology, and policies that are related to smart phones and smart contents,” and continued to say, “We plan to take time for considering the necessary tasks of this nation by frequently holding events similar to the 2nd Smart Media Workshop in the future.”
Cho Yoon-sun, Member of the Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting and Communication, said in his congratulatory message, “Due to the fact that this network or platform is under the jurisdiction of the Korea Communications Commission, and the contents sector is under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting and Communications, there will always lay difficulties when working in the standing committee. Cooperation between departments is of the utmost importance in this industry. Indeed it is crucial to establish customized policies for the users by these government departments.” Ms. Cho also mentioned that “As smart media is a sector under development, more implemental policies for the industry can be established only once the members of the National Assembly become fully aware.” He expressed his thoughts, “At the end of the Middle Ages where educational authority was excessive and humanity was neglected came the Renaissance for a return to humanity, and it feels like we are heading back to humanism through this smart media environment after the age of the machines from the Industrial Revolution.”
Dr. Kim Seung-tae, President of the National Information Society Agency started by saying that “This workshop is a valuable event to hold talks on trends and the developmental direction of smart media in preparation for the smart age.” Dr. Kim said, “According to the statistics, at the end of October, the number of smart phones has exceeded 20 million, and now we have come to the use of smart TVs. The content revolution based on smart machinery is now under way.” He said, “The IT policies in our country are being arranged in a segmental and a discontinuous manner. We need to construct a suitable value system and create a social and economic environment in a greater ecosystem based on IT.” He continued to say that “From the public-private-scholar partnership, creative and innovative people-oriented services must be expanded and an ecosystem that can fully adopt and link that partnership to related industries must be established,” and again emphasized that “Only then Korea can rise as the powerhouse in smart media beyond IT.”
Keynote Speech by Kim Jin-hyung, professor of KAIST
" Let us look back at the software industry"
The keynote speaker Dr. Kim Jin-hyung, Professor of KAIST, said in his speech, “I think smart is the weapon in this information-oriented society. The smart society is a matured, post-information-oriented society. It is a people-oriented society with knowledge and creativity as the driving force.” Professor Kim said, “Mark Benioff characterized the smart society in one word and that is ‘social’. Speed, openness, cooperation, creativity, concentration and leadership are the necessities for the smart industry.” He added, “Personal communication is crucial in the smart industry. The software, is more important than the product itself,” and summarized by saying, “Observing the changes in the IT paradigm, the three keywords are mobile, cloud, and openness.”
Professor Kim described the smart phone as “a computer with an operating system.” He explained the value created from software by giving as example the product cost breakdown of Apple’s iPhone 4G. He said, “iPhone 4G is USD 560, of this hardware costs USD 178, leaving USD 368, two-third of the product price, is Apple’s profit,” and emphasized that “Apple’s profit is made from software. Software is the golden goose.” He mentioned, “Software is a tool laid on hardware. It now seems obvious but communications experts had not come up with this idea 2 or 3 years ago,” and added, “The difference between feature phones and smart phones lay here.”
What is software
Professor Kim said, “iPhone celebrates its 4th birthday, and already has dominated 66% of the global market. The legend of Apple’s iOS is referred to as the software revolution,” and also said, “Software is eating the world. Hardware is being reorganized around software, for example, computers are being installed in refrigerators and Google is developing software for cars.” He defined software as a “product reflecting knowledge and experience accumulated from information and knowledge” and explained, “Using and additionally developing, thus increasing value, now that is software. Software is the key tool for other industries.” He stressed again the need to fully use software for other industries to prosper.
Professor Kim classified the software industry in five categories. The first is the IT service sector, represented by Samsung SDS and Accenture. Second is the software package company in which products have already been made. Microsoft and Hancom are typical examples. Third is the embedded software which is for companies such as VDS and MDS Technology that produce specialized computers for cars, refrigerator, among other devices. Fourth is the digital content. Disney, Sony and NC Soft all belong here. Fifth is the internet service. Google, NHN and Amazon are the companies in this category. Professor Kim gave some examples by saying, “Google is an open software company that sells nothing. 99% of Amazon’s engineers are software experts,” and pointed out, “For the past 20 years, we have not considered them as software companies and neglected the software industry. This was a bad call.”
According to a survey by the Bank of Korea in 2009, the software industry creates jobs of both quantity and quality, with the employment index of 6.4 laborers per KRW 1 billion in sales. Manufacturing businesses employ 0.9 workers. According to CNN Money in October, 2010, software engineers ranked first out of the top 10 occupations. Korea, however, was an exception. As the reason, Professor Kim pointed out that “We do not use software.”
Korea’s software use is one-third that of advanced countries. Professor explained, “We are just strong in communications and infrastructure. A country with low software applicability can hardly be considered as an IT powerhouse.” Dale Jorgenson, Chair Professor at Harvard, pointed out that “Although Korea has competitiveness in production of IT products, applicability is rather low.” According to a 2007 report by the Bank of Korea, the following conclusion had been drawn: "Korea has low IT applicability throughout the economy, and thus is not creating practically economic results from technical innovation performances in the IT production sector such as production growth."
Software industry is a must
Professor Kim said that notwithstanding these facts, opportunities are on the surface. He says it is “all due to Steve Jobs.” Professor Kim explains that Korea’s mobile app sector has a great chance for development. Korea, with internet and mobile service as a way of life since the 1980s, is the world’s second most important manufacturer of mobile devices and is considered strong in internet mobile services from NC Soft, Nexon, and Naver already having pioneering the sector. The fact that one-third of smart phone applications are video games gives plenty of room for competition. World-class competitiveness in applied sectors such as educational informatization, medical informatization, finance, e-government, automobiles and shipbuilding has also been secured.
Professor Kim is starting a movement for app centers in order to give creators a greater boost. It aims to promote the mobile-software-content industry by setting up and systematically supporting conferences for app developers to gather and create together. He presented a blueprint for employment of both quantity and quality derived from this movement. Professor Kim said, “Our nation’s number one industries have been shipbuilding and automobiles. Those were all possible because the steel industry was at the base,” and speaking with emphasis, “So too, software can be the driving force for all knowledge-based economic industries. Although the software industry itself may seem weak, taking up only 2% of the global market, it is an industry that must be pursued.”
After the keynote speech the following topics were presented: AR 2.0: ‘Toward Ubiquitous Virtual Reality’ from Professor Woon-tack Woo of GIST, ‘Smart Contents and Life Style’ from Dr. Han Dong-won of ETRI, ‘Smart Society & User Interface Design Principle’ from Professor Jung Eui-seung of Korea University, ‘Technical Trends in Smart Contents Processing from Vice President Young-kyu of NVidia Corporation, and ‘LTE Smart Phone Based Multimedia Service’ from Choi Cha-bong of LG U+.
