I've commented before about South Korea's stunning loyalty to Microsoft – that company's 90-something-% market-share is the highest of anywhere in the world, I believe. And I think I've noted before that it's driven been by one major thing: early adoption of internet-banking and online secure-transaction tools, under the aegis of extensive government mandates regarding middleware and security features, that coincidently relied on Microsoft's proprietary ActiveX technology.
Mozilla has recently taken the time to post an excellent blog entry on the subject of South Korea's "Monoculture" vis-a-vis browsers and operating systems (and no wonder, being Microsoft's most successful competitor in the browser market). They provide a good summary of the issues, and implicitly explain why iPhone and Android will fail in South Korea, despite their huge cachet and positive brand images.
Given that Samsung recently announced they were going to try joining the crowded field of smartphone OS design, with their "Bada" product (I think that's what it's called – I'm writing from memory on this), I wonder if this will change? Or will Samsung go ahead and pay some kind of royalty to MS in order to license and use ActiveX and/or internet explorer, in exchange for being able to exploit the current monoculture to protect and enhance their potential for suceess in their home market and suppress their most innovative potential competitors (e.g. Google, Apple, RIM)? Hmm… I bet there's some kind of dealing going on, there. I wonder how many shares in tech chaebol Bill Gates owns? He should own a lot.