KOREA: Google, SK Telecom tie up in alliance
Internet company and wireless operator will collaborate to develop a search engine for cell phones
Korea Times
Sunday, October 29, 2006
By Kim Tae-gyu
Google, the world's leading Internet company, will develop a next-generation search engine specifically for cell phones together with SK Telecom, Korea;s top wireless operator.
SK Telecom yesterday said the Seoul-based company had signed a contract late last week with Google for the development of the mobile search solution.
"Google is now working on a mobile search engine customized for Korean cell phones, and the first product will have its debut next month," SK Telecom official Yang Yoon-seon said.
"Under the envisioned mobile services, search results will cover the full fixed-line Web on top of wireless search-specific network," Yang said.
Thus far, mobile searchers could obtain query results among data registered on the wireless Internet network by carriers or content providers. They could not access content on the landline Web network.
SK Telecom subscribers will be able to conduct mobile searches via SK Telecom mobile portal, dubbed Nate, which is accessible by clicking a hot key.
"With search information from the full Web, there are images and other large-sized files, which don't come out very well on a small form factor device like a phone," Yang said.
"Google will leverage its transcoding technologies geared toward rendering the landline-tailored Web pages to show up well on the phones," Yang added.
Google has tried to preempt the mobile search market, and the alliance with SK Telecom is part of an effort aimed at securing its future growth in the field.
Earlier this year, for one, Google forged a relationship on the mobile search with KDDI, Japan's runner-up wireless carrier.
Full-throttle attack on Korea?
The hook-up with SK Telecom marks Google's second big move in Korea this month. The U.S. search engine agreed on Oct. 10 to set up a research and development (R&D) center in Korea soon.
Under the agreement, Google will spend at least $10 million over the next two years and hire more than 130 researchers for the R&D lab.
The back-to-back maneuvers prompt hearsay that Google has finally attempted to address the Korean market, in which it has struggled unsuccessfully to make its presence felt.
Google, which accounts for about half of the global search market, embarked on a Korean-language search service in 2001, but its market share is stuck in the neighborhood of 1.5 percent.
But experts said the partnership with SK Telecom will not be enough for Google to wade into the overstuffed domestic market in full swing.
"Google must snap up a local portal like Daum Communications to compete with business bellwether NHN. Otherwise, it will continue to fail to take a firm root," said Wayne Lee, an economist at Woori Securities.
Daum is Korea's second-largest Internet company following NHN, which operates the country's foremost Internet portal Naver.
Kim Kyung-mo, an analyst at Mirae Asset, even said the team-up with SK Telecom will reduce the possibility of such an acquisition by Google.
"The alliance with SK Telecom demonstrates Google will not take over Korean portals because SK Telecom is a company, which can be their potential rival when Google scoops up local portals," Kim said.
SK Telecom is the parent company of SK Communications, Korea's No. 3 Internet outfit, which is cranking up its investment in searches. Of late, it acquired Empas, which has a knack for search technologies.
Date Posted: 10/29/2006 |
