The Ministry of Knowledge Economy has selected five consortiums to carry out the World Best Software (WBS) project, which will be implemented until early 2013.
"The five consortiums are the KAI consortium, in charge of unmanned aircraft software; Infraware, for mobile software; AhnLab, for security software; Infinite, for imaging diagnosis software; and the smart card consortium, for transportation software," a ministry spokesman said.
"The WBS project refers to a large-scale software R&D project propelled by the government to make Korea one of the world's best software powerhouses," he added.
He explained that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will lead the WBS project with their developing software and large companies will actively support the commercialization of developed software.
"At the same time, intellectual property rights will be given to software developers in order to prevent software companies from being placed under the influence of large companies," he said.
The ministry announced the WBS project in seven fields February of this year and a total of 14 consortiums applied for the project. After screening their applications, the ministry finalized five consortiums to participate in five sectors at this time. It plans to finalize consortiums in the remaining two fields - hospital software and automobile software - by the end of this year after receiving more applications.
Characteristics of selected consortiums for the WBS project
"For active software development by SMEs, we selected consortiums led by them. As a result, 82.7 percent of the government's subsidies for the WBS project will go to SMEs, 14.8 percent to non-profit organizations, and 2.6 percent to large companies," he noted.
Meanwhile, large companies will participate in the consortiums as a demand institution for successful commercialization of software developed by SMEs. The spokesman mentioned, "To speed up development of the world's best software, the ministry will designate a software engineering center to frequently check the process of all software development and implement quality management on already developed software."
Cho Suk, Chief of the Growth Engine Department of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said, "I think that not only task contents are selected this time, but also appraisal management of the development process will become a good example for future software R&D projects."
Commenting that the development of core software armed with global competitiveness is a prerequisite to improve the international competitive power of domestic manufacturing and service companies, the spokesman said, "The ministry is planning to propel a top-down project centering on major industrial demands."
"In line with this, the ministry plans to expand the WBS project to such core software projects as mobile, energy, and national defense necessary for domestic key industries and advancement into foreign countries," he said.
Details of the WBS projects propelled by consortiums
The KAI consortium, consisting of seven companies, including Pixoneer, Young Poong Electronics, and Korea Aerospace Industries, will develop standard solutions and test beds for unmanned aircrafts.
"The consortium, which will receive 4.5 billion won as a state subsidy, will develop common software solutions for both military and private unmanned aircrafts and prepare a test bed for the functioning of platforms and appraisal of safety," the spokesman said.
He added, "As aircraft advanced countries are strategically using such technology from political and economic viewpoints and prohibiting technology transfers to foreign countries, Korea should develop such core software by its own ability."
Among the software to be developed by the consortium are automatic flight controls, automatic pilot, unmanned software integrated management systems, integrated test systems, hardware in the loop simulation (HILS), and ground flight test inspection systems.
The demand for unmanned crafts is expected to reach 220 billion won during the five years from 2012 in Korea and 31 trillion won in the world, the ministry noted.
The Infraware consortium, consisting of eight companies, including Infraware, Innoace, and SK Telecom, will develop an open-type web platform with a government subsidy of 6 billion won.
"To provide a variety of services suitable to a convergence environment, the consortium will develop next-generation Web standard technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, Widget2.0, and XHR LeveI 2; middleware framework for the control of terminals and networks; UI to support multi-screen; graphic library technology; Web Sync, Web application framework technology for data and contents sharing; and authoring tools for the development of Web applications and library," he explained.
"Through the development of such technology, the ministry plans to secure 12 percent of the domestic market share by 2012," he noted.
The AhnLab consortium, comprising five companies, including Ahn Computer Virus Research Center and KISA, will develop a solution to detect and protect mobile malicious programs under the government's financial assistance of 3 billion won.
"Owing to the growing worries which have arisen over new mobile security threats in the wake of a rapid increase in the supply of smartphones, the consortium needs to develop software technology to inspect, cure and supervise mobile malicious codes, and build an infrastructure to monitor and collect malicious code samples," he said.
In Korea, the demand for smartphones is expected to soar from 1.4 trillion won in 2010 to 4.7 trillion won in 2015, and the demand for mobile security is likely to soar from 4.8 billion won to 22.3 billion won during the corresponding period.
The Infinite consortium, consisting of 10 companies, including Infinite Health Care, Seoul University Hospital and KT, will develop intelligence-type imaging diagnostic and a therapy assistance system with the state aid of 2.5 billion won.
"The consortium will develop an imaging diagnostic supporting system, which combines computer help diagnosis and a disease reading system by using advanced diagnostic equipment as CT, MRI and PET. Along with this, it will develop an integrated system for the cooperative diagnosis of enterprise-class hospitals," said the spokesman.
The smart card consortium, comprised of nine firms, including Korea Smart Card and LG CNS, will develop AFC standard solutions with a government subsidy of 2 billion won.
"The consortium will develop standard sizes for data disposal, application systems and data interface, as well as solutions linked with such global multimedia, including mobile phones, Paypass, and the RF-EMV card," he added.
