Samsung and LG, two companies that represent the rapid evolution of South Korea’s once agrarian society into a world leading technopolis, have a slight problem when it comes to making software for mobile phones. To put it bluntly, they simply have no design skills what so ever. It’s to be expected of a people who are forced to learn Star Craft at such a young age, and who prefer to interact with robots rather than their common man.
To aid in the creation of a better software experience, Samsung has hired Jung Ji-hong, a professor of Visual Communication Design at Kookmin University, as Vice President for their Mobile Design Group. He will be in charge of setting up a strategy for user experience design for Samsung smartphones. This can mean Bada, Android, Windows Phone 7, or whatever else becomes the talk of the town in the next few years.
“We hope he would greatly contribute to improving the user’s experience, which is increasingly important in products,” Samsung spokesperson Leonor Lee said.
Not wanting to be alone, LG picked up Lee Kun-pyo, a professor at the Korea Institute of Advanced Technology, as Head and Executive Vice President of their Design Management Center. The guy who used to be in charge of that department, Bae Weon-bog, is now going to be responsible for developing LG’s plans to take over the mobile phone space.
Both these companies have the potential to be the next Nokia, or even the next Apple, because Korea is slowly becoming synonymous with quality. It used to be that something made in Japan was a cheap piece of garbage, then Sony came along and changed that. The same can be said for products out of South Korea, which at first used to be sub standard and competed with everything else on the market solely on cost.
Now the times, they are a changing, and I welcome our new Asian overlords.
[Via: Korea Herald]