[Editorial] Operating system R&D

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy is planning to initiate an R&D project to help domestic smartphone manufacturers jointly develop a new operating system for mobile devices. According to reports, the ministry intends to launch a consortium this year together with Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech Group to develop a Web-based, open-source mobile OS within three years.

The ministry’s plan comes amid heightened concerns about the future of the Korean companies. Following Google’s recent announcement of a plan to purchase Motorola Mobility, some feared that the search giant might put the Korean smartphone producers at a serious disadvantage by making some parts of its Android OS a proprietary product and forcing them to pay royalties for using it.

These concerns are not totally unfounded but for the time being, there appears to be little possibility of Google restricting Android access. Samsung officials’ response to Google’s bid for Motorola supports this view. Rather than worried about the acquisition plan, they welcomed it, saying it would help Samsung and other Android phone producers fend off patent claims from Google’s rivals, such as Apple, Microsoft and Oracle.

What motivated Google to acquire Motorola appeared to be the company’s 17,000 mobile phone-related patents. Google faces ever growing patent infringement lawsuits filed by its rivals. Motorola’s huge patent assets would help it protect Android from patent claims and confront other IT powerhouses in the intensifying patent war.

The ministry’s R&D project is not intended to develop an alternative to Android or Apple’s iOS, the currently dominant mobile platforms. It is already too late to challenge them. Rather it is aimed at creating a mobile OS of the next generation that is expected to dominate after 2014.

What the ministry has in mind is a Web-based OS that enables smartphone users to access applications stored in Internet servers via a Web browser. Currently, mobile platforms operate applications stored in users’ phones. Web-based platforms will come into their own when a new generation of wireless technology arrives, offering higher data rates.

The success or failure of the ministry’s R&D project will depend much on whether or not it can create an ecosystem of smartphone manufacturers, component producers, application developers, system designers, testers and other creative people.

Currently, the domestic IT industry lacks such an ecosystem, reflecting its long concentration on hardware manufacturing. We hope the new R&D project serves as a catalyst for the creation of an environment that allows all players related to OS development to participate and exchange creative ideas, thereby maximizing synergies.

Google’s plan to acquire Motorola is symbolic of global IT leaders’ pursuit of both hardware and software power. This shows which way the Korean IT industry should go.