In a recent visit to South Korea, Google exec Larry Page met with the lead officials from both Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. According to sources close to the talks, the tone of these meetings closely resembled the philosophies that each of the South Korean giants practices as they go about their daily business. Both meetings however were intended to improve on the relationship between themselves and the search giant, an effort to make what are strong partnerships even stronger.
As you can imagine the Samsung meeting was the higher profile one. Exactly what you would expect from a company that has grown so much in the past couple of years that they are able to go head to head with Apple.
This meeting between Page and Lee Jay-yong who is Samsung’s Vice Chairman, as well as Samsung Corporate Strategy Office Head Choi Gee-sung and Mobile Division Chief Shin Jong-kyun, certainly made up in showmanship for what it lacked in substance. Basically all we have from this one are a couple of press shots of the principles, with one picture showing Lee with his hand on Page’s shoulder, and a vague reference to Google’s interest in Samsung’s OLED manufacturing business.
The meeting with LG’s CEO Koo Bon-joon on the other hand was more low profile but from it came a lot of information that will surely make fans of all things Google very happy. For instance we’ve all heard the rumors of a collaboration between the two companies on a Nexus 4 followup, but also apparently discussed were partnerships with products including televisions and Google Glass.
“They exchanged views about the latest mega trend in the global information technology (IT) industry. They also discussed how to form an alliance in futuristic projects as part of the big picture. LG needs help from Google to continue its business momentum in smartphones and TVs. That’s why Koo met Page.”
One possible partnership could come from something LG is working on that has been called in some circles “LG Glass”. The manufacturer has recently patented a way for head mounted displays to interact with televisions, something that Google would definitely be interested for any number of reasons. Additionally we know that the two have also been working on Google enabled LG televisions.
Everyone knew that LG would get a “Nexus Bump” from building last year’s Nexus 4 and as of right now they are sitting in the number three slot as the world’s third largest smartphone maker behind Apple and Samsung. Having seen what a Google partnership can do for his company it’s no surprise that Koo wants to see the two make much more music together.
Source: Korea Times