14 DAY TRIAL // For those who thought that having five mobile platforms available on the market is enough, think again. South Korean government plans to develop its own mobile operating system that will protect local smartphone manufacturers against Apple's patents war.
It appears that South Koreans move was a direct result of Google's recent takeover of Motorola, along with its high number of mobile phone related patents.
While Google's action will protect on short term some of the most important South Korean smartphone manufacturers that make Android-based devices, it appears that the government feels that Samsung and LG will be at loss after the Google-Motorola deal.
To protect their interests, the South Korean government decided to develop its own mobile operating system, which will be the result of a collaboration between Samsung, LG and other local phone makers.
Commenting on the subject, Kim Jae-Hong, a deputy minister from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, said: “Because Google is an open-source system, it cannot just switch over to a closed-source system overnight. Still, we cannot completely rule out the possibility of Google jumping into the smartphone business in the future.”
Given the fact that Samsung already has its own bada mobile platform, the company had been very negative about joint development of another open operating system.
However, according to Kim, Samsung's attitude has changed greatly after Google acquired Motorola’s mobile phone business.
Basically, the government will launch a project by the end of the year, which is meant to allow all local phone manufacturers to jointly develop their own open-source mobile platform, as well as a Web-based operating system.
According to the ministry official, the South Korean government plans to protect the “habitat” for the new mobile platform, given the fact that its success mostly depends on how many people use it.