SEOUL, KOREA --- “Korea has a poor software business environment,” said Lee Young-sang, Chairman of the Korea Software Enterprise Association (KOSEA) and President of DataStreams, in an interview with the Korea IT Times. “As Korea does not have a strong awareness of the importance of intellectual property rights and fair trade, it is difficult for software companies usually classified into small and medium-sized enterprises to survive in Korea. Chairman Lee received the Prime Minister’s Prize on the 12th Software Industry Workers Day on November 21.
In this barren land, Korean software companies have sown seeds and cultivated the field. Some day, they will see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Chairman Lee said. “As chairman of KOSEA, I will make steady efforts to change the ecosystem of the Korean software industry and improve systems.” The Ministry of Knowledge Economy in tandem with KOSEA is making endeavors to prevent the software industry from being degraded while creating synergies, Chairman Lee said.
This year, KOSEA has made efforts to give practical help to software companies. Since 2010, Chairman Lee has managed the association by improving the business environment of the software industry, promoting the interest of Korean software companies by enhancing the Good Software Certification System, and laying the foundation for expanding the software industry and establishing systems for equal partnership between large and small companies.
“A Korean a “Google” or “Apple” cannot be born in a Korean ecosystem where the government only supports and cultivates software companies more than 10 years old, as the government did for big Chaebol companies in the 1970s and 1980s,” Chairman Lee pointed out. “When carrying out software business with support from the government usually the focus is not on ideas or creativity but on profitability,” he explained.
“Nurturing good software companies means discovering creativity and new ideas and making investment in them,” Chairman Lee added. According to him, making investments to catch up with popular commercial software makes Korean software developers always latecomers. Chairman Lee hopes that the venture start-up boom will be stirred and the market environment will become activated, giving energy to Korean software. To make this happen, people should change the way they think, he declared. With this change taking place, Korean-type global software companies will be born and prosper, Chairman Lee emphasized.
“If the government promotes the Korean software industry with big companies at the center while liquidating creativity, the Korean software industry will not be able to have a better future,” Chairman Lee said with an air of finality. “For win-win growth of big, medium-sized and small companies, the government is advised to decisively block big companies from entering the software industry.”
“These days, prevailing Korean software companies are game companies such as NC Soft, Nexon, and NHN, a portal site operator, all of which provide B2C services,” Chairman Lee continued. “Neither the government nor big companies can not get between software and consumers.” These companies are classified into software companies that promote their business with creative ideas.
Chairman Lee compared the three companies with embedded software companies, one of the software companies subordinate to big companies. The embedded software sector has a big market. But his analysis is that the embedded software sector has an ecological environment where software companies can hardly grow. “Embedded software companies have no alternative but to become subordinate to big companies due to their characteristics. Big companies use them as subcontractors,” Chairman Lee explained.
“Korean software companies that have engaged in the software business for more than ten years have enough global competitiveness,” Chairman Lee analyzed. “These companies can succeed in overseas markets by stably generating profits in the domestic marking and making steady investment in overseas markets.” If the ecosystem of the domestic market improves thanks to people's stronger awareness of the importance of intellectual property rights and fair trade, Korean software companies will have a bigger possibility of succeeding””
”So, Korean software companies are advised to tap into the U.S. and Japanese market by focusing on securing big companies in those countries. And to develop markets in China, we should approach China offering to make collaborative partnerships. In Southeast Asia, we have to compete with multinational companies, but we have an advantage as we are close to Southeast Asian countries in terms of culture,” Chairman Lee said about characteristics of overseas markets and how to approach them.
