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Koh Soon-dong

Microsoft announced plans to return to its former glory by bolstering its cloud-based services, hopping on the bandwagon of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As part of this strategy, the company announced it will be building data centers in both Seoul and Busan, along with an additional data center in Busan that will serve as a hub for dozens of data centers it operates in Asia.

During a press conference at COEX in Seoul on Feb. 21, Microsoft Korea announced the simultaneous launch of operations at data centers in Seoul and Busan. “Both of the sites are secured with ‘base isolation,’ which enables them to endure earthquakes and other natural disasters better than earthquake-resistant design. We‘ll be upgrading our Azure cloud computing service to reclaim the top spot in the IT industry,” said Koh Soon-dong, CEO of Microsoft Korea. The company also announced that it had purchased land to build an additional data center in Busan.

Cloud services, which are expected to serve as the basis of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, can be accessed via the internet without purchasing separate computer servers or software. They can be used as needed and paid for according to the amount of use, just as with tap water and electricity. With Azure, users first visit the service website to select their computer performance, server data capacity and required software and then access those services on their office computers via the internet.

“Since the Azure cloud service is a hybrid approach, one of its advantages is that customers can use not only the systems they’re already running but also Microsoft’s high-tech IT tools such as big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft’s cloud services department.

In the South Korean cloud service market, competition is likely to heat up and Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. These two companies are leading the domestic market, with Oracle and IBM in hot pursuit. With these companies‘ pursuit of innovation and even presidential candidates promoting the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the cloud service market is expected to see rapid growth.

By Kim Jae-seob, staff reporter

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