Hancom Group is an office suite software developer in South Korea. Established in 1990, the company created Hangul, a native word processing program for the Korean language. Hancom Group is the largest comprehensive SoftWare group in South Korea with Hancom and MDS technology as the core. Hancom has been concentrating on defending the domestic market from the Microsoft-Office of Microsoft in the U.S, now they are looking at overseas markets with Hancom-Office. Hancom has entered the office SW market in Africa and targeting North America with equipped Hancom-Office on Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S8.
Above this, Hancom has recently launched a new business called Malang-Malang. The ‘GenieTalk’, which has been heating up the domestic translation and interpretation market, is the automatic translator and interpreter which are official SW of Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games and Paralympics. The ‘Talkafe’ is a private messenger that allows individuals to select the range of information exposure, and it is easy to join without a cell phone number, and can register friends by selecting only the person you want. You can use messenger and community at the same time and after a certain period of time; you can delete, cancel, and reserve messages. The ‘Wepubl’ is a combination of electronic book authoring tools and a cloud sharing platform. It is an independent publishing platform which can share information, composition, picture etc. It adopts YouTube as a platform.
The ‘Flexcil’ is a mobile digital note that combines an e-book and a notebook. Flexcil was developed with the goal of expanding into globally. According to Chang-Il Lee of Flexcil CEO, using with Flexcil’s study notes, you do not need an additional notebook or paper and pen. Flexcil is made to write directly on the open PDF. Flexcil is also following the global trend to reduce the use of paper by using e-books. The main challenge for most handwriting-apps is the finger touch issue that happens when you mistakenly touch the screen with your finger. This causes unintentional lines or spots on the screen. However, with Flexcil’s enhanced algorithm do not create unintentional marks or scratches. You’ll never experience scrolling or turning a page by accident either. He also said “we take pride in that Flexcil is one of the most intuitive and convenient digital solutions for school and research”. The U.S education markets is already using digital appliances like Chromebooks and according to the Statista 2017, the number of U.S, tablet users is forecast to exceed 177.1 million in 2018.
Hancom Flexcil, which developed ‘Flexcil’, started as Hancom’s in-company venture and became an independent subsidiary. It has been recognized for its enterprise value of 9.3 billion won by Korea Invention Promotion Association with unique ideas and technology. The ‘Flexcil-beta’ launched last year was the second highest free app in the iPad Korea and ranking first in productivity. With these convenience and characteristics, they are getting positive feedback from users, and they plan to improve with users’ favorite apps through constant updating.
The Hancom Group is next-generation growth power in key areas of the fourth industrial revolution such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robot, Internet (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) / Virtual Reality (VR), Healthcare, Edu-Tech, autonomous vehicle and so on. Additionally, we expect to see increased corporate value, not only including Hancom and MDS technologies but also Hancom-Secure and Hancom-GMD.
Irene Kim
K-Herald Korea
(Los Angeles Times Advertising Supplement)
