Eric Schmidt has been credited as the man that gave a young Google credibility, and even though the reigns of CEO have been handed over to Sundar Pichai, from Larry Page who took over from Schmidt in 2011, he still has a big role to play. Schmidt has often been seen as a deal maker for Google, and is now an Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Google’s newly-created parent company. In the 10 years that Schmidt ran Google, from 2001 to 2011, it’s argued that he was instrumental in driving the company to stability, and creating a revenue stream around ads and search that still continues at the heart of the Internet giant today. Now, it would appear he is being sent to South Korea to meet with LG and Samsung, with an aim to build better bridges with both.
As Business Korea is reporting, Schmidt is taking a 3-Day trip to South Korea, starting October 29th, and he will be meeting with executives and representatives from both Samsung and LG during his time there. It would appear as though Schmidt will be traveling in his role as Executive Chairman for Alphabet, so it’s unclear as to how much of this is going to have to do with Android. Even so, we’re sure that Samsung will be wanting to hear just why Google feel that LG is “the best partner” for Google to work with when it comes to Nexus devices, especially as the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 10 were well-received by fans.
It’s more than likely that these negotiations will be about new products, revolving around IoT devices from both Samsung and LG. For Google, they already have LG onboard with their new IoT operating system, but Samsung has found some success with their own system, and it would be great for the Internet giant if they could persuade Samsung to either adopt their platform or at least work closer with them on upcoming products. Either way, we’ll have to wait a little while to see if any announcements are made towards the end of the week as a result of Eric’s visit to South Korea. Needless to say, this is good news for both LG and Samsung overall.