By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter

KT will set up a $4.3 million software joint venture with a local company ― TmaxSoft.

KT, led by CEO Lee Suk-chae, plans to foster the venture as the nation’s top-level solutions provider which has original technologies, officials say.

The KT stake in the venture is 60 percent, with the remainder to be taken up by Tmaxsoft, KT said.
``We must strengthen competitiveness in fixed- and wireless-converged services. KT needs to internalize software power to effectively ride the convergence trend,’’ a KT spokesman said, adding the venture will start operations from December.

``Tmax has a proven track record in research and development (R&D) and has been credited with technology advances in some operating systems,’’ he said.

The announcement came at the right time for Tmax as the local software company is struggling to stay afloat.

Recently the company announced that it would lay off 10 percent of its workforce, or about 200 employees, and pull the plug on its unprofitable business divisions.

KT sources say the company will use the joint venture to develop its own operating systems for smartphones and other mobile devices, considering that Tmax has a plan to relocate about 100 of its engineers from its operating systems and embedded software development teams to the new company.

KT will start selling Apple’s iconic iPhone in the South Korean market from later this month. Some 150,000 iPhones manufactured by Apple’s China plant will initially be introduced to South Korean consumers, company officials say.

KT is heavily betting on smartphones and converged telecommunication services as its new growth engines in the saturated domestic telecommunications market.

yckim@koreatimes.co.kr