Alibaba, Samsung making own version of Google Glass: Sources

December 15, 2013 Leave a comment

Alibaba, Samsung making own version of Google Glas: Sources

Thursday, December 12, 2013 – 09:52

Kim Ji-hyun

The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

SEOUL – Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s largest online trading company, on Wednesday met with Samsung Electronics executives including mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun. While Samsung remained tight-lipped on the matter, sources said the two sides had much to talk about, including Alibaba’s ambitions to manufacture its own version of the Google Glass – a wearable computer fitted with an optical head-mounted display that is to serve as a ubiquitous computer.Alibaba has been quietly building the device and is reportedly looking to commercialise the product in the mid- or long-term future, for which it will need the support of many IT companies including Samsung.

“There are memory chips, displays and other types of hardware that are needed for this to work,” said one source close to the matter, declining to be identified.

If Samsung does agree to provide its technology, things could get a bit tricky since the Alibaba device would be going directly against Google, Samsung’s most critical partner that provides operating systems for its smartphones.

Samsung has been repeatedly silencing rumours that there may be a falling out with Google since Samsung is anxious to have an operating system of its own, which is why it has been working on the Tizen OS.

However, the operating system itself will be a problem since Alibaba will need one to run its device on — something Samsung can’t provide.

“Tizen may be one solution, but whether it will be mature enough is another difficult issue,” said another industry watcher.

Assuming that the Alibaba version of the Google Glass will provide bluetooth, communication networks will also be necessary, the watchers said.

Ma is said to have met with officials and executives of telecom companies here such as KT, along with Naver, the largest search engine during his visit.

Alibaba, first established in 1999 by Ma, has a number of sales platforms that together in past year recorded sales of more than 170 trillion won (S$200 billion) to step past eBay. On Nov 11 – China’s Singles’ Day designed to celebrate the bachelor life – Alibaba broke its daily sales record with over US$5.75 billion (S$7.2 billion).

Alibaba also received investment from SoftBank in Japan, and Ma is currently a board member with the institution. He is said to be close friends with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, and also with other global IT heavyweights including Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.

Alibaba currently already uses big data to store merchant and customer-behaviour records that allow it to see cash flow, supplier and customer names, and also whether a business’ sales are growing.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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