MS introduced the MSRS 1.5, a robotics software development tool, on July 9th. The MSRS 1.5 supports Windows CE as well as Windows XP and is convenient in developing robotics software on the individual level with 20 times faster data processing speed than the 1.0 version.
MS plans to open a MSRS website in Korean on August 27th to promote MSRS 1.5 to the domestic market. It is the first time for MS to open a MSRS website for a non-English speaking country. The Robotics business unit of MS even sent an employee in June to be exclusively engaged in the Korean market.
MS also announced that it would set up a professional community by supplying MSRS to 100,000 software developers in Korea, which is a similar practice to facilitating the global PC market in the past thanks to open software developed by individuals in the early stages of the PC industry.
Kim Young-joon, head of Robotics business unit of MS, said: "By forming a community of developers to upgrade robotic functions and share robotics software sources, we will be able to dramatically advance an era of one robotics for one man."
In addition, MS will have promotion events for MSRS at 13 universities nationwide starting next month, and support various robotics software competition. It will also launch 4 to 5 robotics platforms for MSRS developers in cooperation with 6 domestic robotics partners such as Yujin Robotics and Micro Robot. The Intelligent Robotics Department of Mokwon University has already included the MSRS into its curriculum for the first semester of next year.
Kim Young-jun, head of the robotics business unit of MS, said: "When everybody can develop robotics software and share it easily, more creative robotics applications will come out in a large quantity. We will strengthen our marketing activities to increase the number of domestic MSRS users to 5,000 by the end of this year, and 30,000 by the end of next year."
