Korea lags behind in software revolution

Kim Jung-ju, the founder of Nexon who made a two billion-dollar fortune with a great success of online games such as “The Kingdom of the Winds,” majored in computer science and engineering at prestigious Seoul National University. When asked why he started an online game business, he said, “Gaming was the only area where a business could survive in the Korean software industry.”

Independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo became a conservative in security and a liberal in economics because he had a hard time running his business, AhnLab, due to conglomerates’ drastic price cuts and extortion of technologies. Ironically, these two cases show how difficult it is to have a software business in Korea.

Koh Kun, former computer science and engineering professor at Seoul National University, said in a lecture at the Future, Creation, and Science Ministry on Wednesday, “Korea is doing nothing while software is eating the world away.” He added, “Nine out of 10 computer science and engineering graduates of Seoul National University give up their majors and seek different career paths.” Half of 30 computer science professors do not have graduate students. This is because the government did nothing about software policy for more than 20 years.”

The world is literally in software revolution. Microsoft acquires hardware manufacturers such as Nokia and Google makes unmanned automobiles and wearable computers. Software is the core of all cutting-edge devices including aircraft, automobiles, ships, and fighters, as well as electronic devices such as smartTVs and smartphones, and makes hardware “smart.” People go as far as to say, "Cars run on software, not on gasoline." Korea is the world’s number 1 in shipbuilding but imports more than 90 percent of software and 99 percent of software embedded in cars. Weak software capability is dragging down the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.

While businesses complain about the lack of talents, young people do not want to work in the software industry due to low wages. A developer gets a meager one-tenth of a 5 million-dollar project because of the multiple layers of subcontracting. Customers pay 20 percent of maintenance costs to foreign companies every year after purchasing an application, but not a cent to Korean companies. People pay for Windows OS while illegally copying applications developed by a Korean company. This is why Korea has no global software company while Bill Gates has become the world`s richest person.

The Future Ministry has said it will cultivate 100,000 software experts and one million software expert wannabes at primary and secondary schools by 2017. Despite a good plan by the government, talents can hardly succeed in a country that does not recognize the value of software.