‘Asia to take software crown from U.S.’

TAIPEI ― Asia will emerge as the hub of software development in the mobile world, replacing traditional powerhouses like the U.S., said Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

“It should be possible for the next generation of software companies to emerge from Asia and they could transform from a regional champion to a global champion,” he said in a video conference at the Mobile First World, a global media conference, held in Taipei, Taiwan Tuesday. 

 

Schmidt said the shift from the West represented by the U.S. to the Asian region would pick up its pace, as the latter ― which has the people and hardware ― will likely be equipped with sophisticated software capability as seen in mobile messenger apps like WeChat, Line and KakaoTalk.

Responding to questions on a variety of topics, from smartphones to the Internet of Things, the Google executive chairman said a ‘mobile-only world’ is on the horizon.

“We are beginning to see a ‘mobile-only world,’ meaning that all the functionalities are in the mobile devices, and you may have a website for some management works,” he said, hinting that the PC era is coming to an end.

With the smart devices becoming more pervasive in developing nations, the technology will bring a variety of economic and cultural changes to these countries, he added.

Echoing Schmidt, Chris Yerga, a vice president of engineering at the U.S.-based firm, said, “Within the Google Play ecosystem, there has been a threefold growth in the number of developers from Asia in the last two years.”

The number of Korean developers on the Android platform has tripled in the past two years, and Korea is now one of the top five countries in the world in terms of the number of developers on Google Play, a mobile application market, according to the U.S.-based Internet giant.

In his keynote speech at the event, Song Jae-joon, senior executive vice president of South Korean game developer Com2uS, talked about the enabling role of the Google Play platform in helping his company enter the global markets.

“Our second quarter revenue doubled this year with the global revenue accounting for 68 percent of Com2uS’ entire sales thanks to Google Play,” the senior vice president said.

By utilizing the Android platform, he said, the game company was able to realize the ‘glocalization’ of content and services, including language and social networking services.

“We will try to increase our presence in the global markets via Google Play.”

By Kim Young-won, Korea Herald correspondent
(wone0102@heraldcorp.com)