Exiting out of Jonggak Station, turning right, and walking into the buzz that is any major subway station in downtown Seoul, one may walk right past the large Bandi and Looni's Bookstore that sits in the heart of the subway station.
Its position primarily fulfills a more aesthetic desire than a practical, come-look-over-here impact on a potential customer, but it does receive the busy-person's attention. What a typical passer-by may not know, though, is that an Apple Reseller sits right under the escalator of the famous bookstore chain in Korea.
In my first article, I discussed how Korea has seemed to ignore the growing global dependency and market demand for Macintosh computers. I supported this idea by mentioning there were only two Macintosh Computer Stores within Korea at that time, and one was less than a year old. I also mentioned the benefits of a Macintosh computer very quickly, such as the immunity to the current viruses designed to primarily for Window operating systems.
I followed this introductory argument with my second article that highlighted the non-Macintosh friendly Internet problem within Korea. In that article, the highlights were how, only last year the group Open Web Korea threatened a lawsuit on the South Korean government if they did not make the internet friendly for Macintosh users. This change entailed not only fixing minor web pages, such as Naver, but also the main government's interactive web pages for citizens, through altering the Korean internet's dependency only on ActiveX controls. Luckily, this change did occur and currently, it is only blogs such as CyWorld that do not make friendly relations with Macintosh computer operating systems.
So, where now As of one year ago, the technology Korea depended on subsisted of computer systems hostile towards working with Macintosh, object-oriented operating systems. But today, this seems to be changing. Is it true that Korea could change so much in one year that it has begun down the an effective Macintosh technological adaptation road
The answer is YES. Within this last year, the popularity and awareness of Macintosh has risen in the Korean computer market. Four or more new Macintosh stores have been built within Seoul within the last few months, one within the month or so.
In addition, having spoken to a few readers of Korea IT Times, I have been repeatedly told that Koreans are interested in learning more about the foreign, US-based computer item.
Most Koreans have mentioned that they have seen the computer in many American movies, and desire to learn about the different operating system. Other Koreans, of course, have pointed out the negative aspects of a Macintosh computer.
These complaints range from the lack of updates to keep Macintosh as an active competitor on the computer market to not having ActiveX controls already installed in the computer when bought. The truths of these issues are, though, that only within Korea have Macintosh users been facing problems. These problems are primarily still due to Korea's computer technology not developing Macintosh compatibility quick enough to satisfy some Korean Macintosh users.
Macintosh has remained competitive on the global computer market, with programs such as the 2005 release of the dual operating system Mac which also supports Windows. In addition, most Macintosh computer users have already installed the Firefox web browser, a free installation from Mozilla which possesses the needed Active X technology to function on many Korean websites.
Even though some Korean people still dislike the idea of a Macintosh integrated computer society, most Koreans that I have spoken to support the idea or are at least curious about the possibility. Within the last few months, the Macintosh computer has transformed from an item that no one in Korea knew much about to a buzzword that people are researching on the internet.
If people continue to remain curious and interested in the object-oriented computer operating system, the "balli balli" mentality of Korea will force the nation's computer technological society to soon adapt and integrate the once foreign object.
