Clouds, clouds, and clouds? The weather forecast for Korean cloud services and big data

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2013년 01월 07일 Sue J. Hur

There’s a saying in Korean that goes “뜬구름 잡는다”. It literally means that you’re grasping at the air and chasing empty dreams – the direct translation would be “grabbing clouds”.

So: what’s the deal with big data and cloud services in Korea? You might have read in our previous article that they were key words for 2013 as Gartner and NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency of Korea) put it. You can read the article here.

Big data brought about much attention as a new type of enterprise management innovation. Debates went on and on discussing how Korean companies can improve the quality of work produced.

Let’s talk theory. Technically, cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications running faster – with improved manageability and less maintenance. Business demands can get pretty unpredictable and things can get messy; cloud computing will enable a more rapid adjustment of resources. In other words, there will be an optimization of company resources, business competiveness and support to mobile work.

You might ask, then - why is the Korean market not fully active? Why have private and public bodies not been specifically planning for an investment? Why are they contemplating how to use and apply big data and cloud services? Are we really chasing empty dreams by ‘grabbing clouds’?

Well, if you have been following the Korean news lately, you might recall that KT, SK Telecom, LG U+ and other Internet Data Centre (IDC) and IT service companies that were involved in the cloud service market did not achieve much. Other overseas giants such as Google, HP, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft did not escape this fate; they have also launched their cloud services in Korea but they faced similar difficulties.

Perhaps I’m being a bit too pessimistic. I have put together a pie graph of Cloud Adoption Trends in 2011 and 2012 that VMWare and Forrester have found together in 2011 and 2012.

As you might have guessed from the graph, the truth is: the Korean market is conservative. By conservative, I mean that we are not open to virtualization (both literally and metaphorically), and we’re hesitating because a) there is an evident clash with the existing system, and b) we’re worried about security.

The Managing Director of VMware Korea, Moon-Seok Yoon said that [ko]

“[he has] seen the challenges that cloud faces and expectations for it [and that] VMware will use overseas successes as examples for Korean companies in order to achieve business efficiency and success.”

In November 2012, 55% of the companies that have not used a cloud service said that they plan to use it within 18 months. Desktop virtualization has been the number 1 interest of Korean companies for 2 consecutive years. Which tells us that there will be a definite expansion of cloud services within the Korean companies this year. Although the figures seem meek compared to 79% (Australian companies seem to be very enthusiastic), this could mean more potential for Korea, as we will be able to see that such virtual environments globally sued and acknowledged.

beSUCCESS will keep a lookout for the growth and expansion of cloud services, but what do you think?

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