Partnership boom mostly targeting ties with IT companies

“Who would have imagined that a printer maker becomes partners with Pororo?”

Heo Jeong-yeol, the project development manager of HP’s Asia-Pacific headquarters, is busy meeting with contents companies not just in Korea but also across Asia.

Last year, the company partnered with OCON, the creator of “Pororo,” a popular children’s character, and NHN, the maker of Naver Map to allow users to print what they want with just a click of an application on the screen connected to a printer even without a PC.

When clicking the Pororo app, a “Pororo Coloring Book” page will be printed, and by clicking a newspaper app, an article of the user`s choosing can be printed. Printing tickets is possible by clicking a movie app.

“All companies that produce printable content will be our potential partners,” Heo said. “A decade ago, I would`ve never imagined that a printer division would side with content companies.”

The buzzword in the IT industry is “partnership.” For companies, having good and many partners for their survival is essential. As the market changes, companies have grown desperate as they believe they cannot survive alone.

○ Most popular partnerships

Internet service providers such as NHN, Daum and Nate are the most popular partners for the IT industry. Even electronic companies and car manufacturers have asked them for partnerships.

NHN, which occupies 70 percent of the Korean search engine market, has partnerships with companies such as HP, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor.

This is because cars, TVs and printers cannot be separated from the Internet as wireless Internet has become an essential part of daily life.

Even refrigerators and air conditioners have Internet functions. Because how quickly one can use popular contents to his or her advantage via the Internet is important, search and social networking services have become the most popular items in partnerships.

HP Korea Vice President Im Jin-hwan said, “It has become the top priority of the IT industry to help users experience the contents they want in various spaces.”

Partnerships between Internet and electronic companies are also common in the global market. Google and Sony jointly entered the smart TV market and Samsung Electronics are joining forces with global movie studios such as DreamWorks and Comcast.

○ Ecological war has begun

“Google Wallet,” a mobile electronic wallet recently announced by Google, has attracted attention because the Web search engine has sided with influential global companies such as MasterCard and Citibank, not because the idea is new. As the IT industry is realigned to focus on mobile services, adding partners has become critical and thus explains the rise of strategic partnerships.

Microsoft, whose ego has been bruised in the smartphone era, partnered with Nokia after looking for a manufacturer to use its mobile operating system early this year. Nokia was also struggling with its own operating system because many apps were not attracted to it.

Samsung Electronics has enlarged its market by working with Google in the mobile sector.

“Individual services and products are rapidly integrating with each other with the development of information and communications technologies and changes in the market,” said Chae Seung-byeong, a senior researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute. “The competition among individual companies is turning into an ecological war, where company clusters can have symbiotic relationships.”

kimhs@donga.com