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James Woo Kim, general manager of Microsoft Korea, is confident that the U.S. software giant will eventually prevail in the online industry, and believes Korea could be a crucial test bed in developing new business models.
/ Korea Times Photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
The personal computer is no longer the center of everyone's computing experience, with the Web having an increasing role in the handling of data and content.
It bears further watching how the transition affects Microsoft, which built its global empire on software and enterprise solutions. But according to the chief of the company's Korean operations, the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant isn't planning to surrender an ounce of its mightiness even after the dramatic shift.
James Woo Kim, Microsoft Korea's brand new general manager, certainly has his work cut out for him. He was asked to deliver progress in a country that doubles as a crucial consumer market and technology test bed, but the 47-year-old Internet industry veteran, who previously headed Yahoo! Korea and Overture's Korean and Japanese offices, is confident about becoming a difference maker as he looks to leverage the company's local desktop dominance to online services.
``It's all about maximizing opportunities and how you improve efficiency. Everyone uses software products, but for us, it doesn't stop there as we want to continue to innovate,'' Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times, predicting a significant part of the company's new growth here will come from online services and mobile-based technologies.
``Despite the perception, we face competition all the time. We want to continue to understand what our competitors are doing and position ourselves to deliver the best experience for our customers and partners,'' he said.
In an Internet market dominated by the green giant Naver (www.naver.com) and other domestic Web portals like Daum (www.daum.net) and Nate (www.nate.com), Microsoft is struggling to be relevant as an online destination, with its search, e-mail and media services tanking in popularity.
Microsoft once had a dominant hold of the local instant messenger market through its MSN Messenger services. But with the number of users drained down to the 6 million mark, MSN now finds itself a distant runner up to Nate's Nate-On messenger services, which has over 25 million users.
The hiring of Kim reveals Microsoft's seriousness in strengthening the position of its online services in one of the world's fastest moving Internet markets.
Kim plans to guide the rebuilding process forward by taking advantage of Microsoft's diversified product lineup and services and looking at more ways to synchronize them through the Web, staying true to the company's new corporate motto of ``software plus services.''
``Korea is a very interesting market place and we are determined to win in the online market as well with all the different technologies we offer,'' said Kim, stressing that Korea could emerge as a crucial market to test the company's new business strategies.
``We always had great technology and our online business and advertisement models are evolving as well, which puts Microsoft Korea in a strong position to take advantage,'' he said, adding that the company has ``big partnerships'' in the pipeline to scale the online market, declining to elaborate.
``The numbers show that MSN did not have a very sizable market share in the past, but a lot of Koreans have been using Hotmail and MSN messenger and the duration proves that our products have been competitive. We do have a good foundation to continue building and there's a lot of room for growth.''
Kim is also determined for a bright start in the mobile business, tapping a country where there are more mobile phones than heads and data-enabled handsets are becoming conventional.
``The mobile business is changing the whole new paradigm of the game and the features and mobile-based software technologies are getting batter all the time,'' said Kim, who expects a growing market for Windows Mobile and the company's other wireless products.
Kim is the latest Yahoo executive to jump ship to Microsoft, extending the unusual drama between the two companies that began when Microsoft offered to acquire Yahoo for over $47 billion in May last year.
The deal was declared dead in June, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from poaching the top talent of the troubled Internet company. Before Kim changed his stripes, Qi Lu, formerly the executive vice president of search and advertising technology at Yahoo, and Sean Suchter, previously Yahoo's vice president of search technology, were added to Microsoft's payroll.
Kim declined to offer insight on where the on-and-off talks between Microsoft and Yahoo are headed, but did say that his former Yahoo colleagues would be ``delighted'' to reunite with him.
Microsoft's interest in online services, and thus its appetite for Yahoo, apparently has its targets on Google, clearly the company's biggest foe in the new technology race.
It remains to be seen whether Microsoft could put itself in a position to overtake Google's supremacy in online services. At least in Kim, the company has a man who has beaten Google already.
Under him, Overture retained its leadership in the Internet advertising services despite the increasing challenge from Google.
``When I joined Yahoo and Overture four years ago, everybody said I was taking the wrong job. Four years later, the market share between Overture and Google hasn't changed at all,'' Kim said.
``It's all about having the right team and the ability to execute the right business strategies.''
Microsoft still rules the Korean market in Web browsers, with a market share over 90 percent, and plans to strengthen its position with the release of Internet Explorer 8, which is a significant improvement in speed and security functions.
There are also big hopes for the upcoming Windows 7, the company's new operating system, which is hoped to make up for the disappointing performance of Windows Vista.
Kim, a UCLA grad and Harvard MBA holder, had experience with U.S. companies like IBM. AT&T and Corcoran.com before coming to Korea for Yahoo and Overture.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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yistory@koreatimes.co.kr
