Software’s Lack of X-Factor Hurts Korean IT

It has been quite a while since a big company has made the headlines for not buying up a smaller one, but the beginning of May saw Microsoft make news across the world when it pulled out of talks to buy Yahoo.The software giant, one of the world's biggest companies, reportedly failed to reach a mutually agreeable price with Yahoo, the Web portal site.However, even though Microsoft is still technology's biggest company, it is something of a relic in the modern IT landscape. Once upon a time, technology was simple. There was hardware ― electrical circuitry, diodes and semiconductors, and there was software ― the magical programs that made things work. Companies and individuals could choose to specialize in either and the polarized tech world was easy to understand.But then along came the Internet revolution. Suddenly you could become a millionaire almost overnight if you just had the right idea at the right time. MySpace, YouTube are companies that infamously started with a couple of people in a room with an idea and later sold their sites for hundreds of millions of dollars.The hardware industry is still going strong ― mobile phones continue to become more and more like portable computers. Where once there were just big PCs, now there are all sorts of devices you can carry around with you _ tiny notebook computers, PDAs, PMPs, MP3 players. It seems that more of these they make, the more we buy.But the software industry is reminiscent of the slowly crumbling Roman Empire. Without software, our beautifully-designed shiny boxes are just shiny boxes. What makes them work the way we want them to is software. The problem is, though, nobody seems to care much about software any more. And nowhere is that more the case than in Korea.Even people who study programming and computer science at university seem to show little interest in pursuing careers in the software business here. Choi Gwang-jin, 38, ditched his programming career to start running a cafe, while his wife, Ha-young, 33, also gave up programming to go into the world of marketing. And theirs is hardly an isolated case ― so many Koreans who have trained to become software specialists have worked in the software business for no more than a year before junking their careers. Others, like Lee Eun-joo, 30, who studied computer science at Seoul's Gwangwoon University, have never even started down the software path. Lee went back to full-time education to retrain as a flight attendant instead, saying she had lost her appetite for the software business.However, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that in 2003, 30 percent of research and development was carried out in the field of software. But as the world moves from the mechanical age into the digital, the OECD says that by 2015, that number will be closer to 50 percent. Lee Dan-hyung, president of the Korean Software Association, says, ``Korea is undoubtedly strong in technology, but it really lags behind when it comes to software.''According to Lee, a lot of IT people here are not thinking about the global appeal of marketable software. ``Korean companies often tend to focus too much on the domestic market ― they don't see the wider global picture, and this leads them to neglect software engineering,'' he says.However, there is a strong argument for saying that the software industry is no longer stable. Microsoft thought it had a stranglehold on the market with the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office. Most users still use Windows, most specialists still specialize in Microsoft solutions and most PCs and laptops come with Windows installed, and this still gives MS a massive edge over its competitors.However, MS' competitors now include the Open Source movement and Linux. Open Source is software that can be freely distributed and modified, and Linux is a whole, free operating system.The Korean government has already thrown its hat in with the Linux crowd. In April, authorities said they were to make Haansoft's new Hancom Linux Deluxe the Operating System for 120,000 civil servants ― that is 25 percent of government employees. Last year, officials from Seoul agreed to work on a project called ``Hana Linux'' in collaboration with North Korea, as the entire Korean Peninsula looks forward to a Windows-free future.And much as Linux, Open Office and their like are wonderfully enabling for users, and can save governments and companies a lot of money in licences ― they spell bad news for the big software companies, who stand to lose out as free software continues its relentless march.But although this new instability plays a part in why the software industry continues to drag its feet behind the rest of the IT world, perhaps the biggest problem in the software world is the dreadful public image that the business suffers from.People think software engineers are generally dull, geeky individuals, and there is nothing remotely sexy about programming code. When there is plenty of money to be made by designing sleek new laptop computers, or setting up ground-breaking photo sharing Web sites _ who wants to be stuck behind a computer crunching lines of C++ into a keyboard? Until someone can make it look cool and profitable to be a software expert, people here and elsewhere are going to keep turning their backs on the industry.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2008/05/129_24029.html