Samsung Group subsidiary “Samsung SDS” has been providing information technology services to customers for roughly two decades, and last year the company formed a new cyber security team and acquired a stake in South Korean security firm “SECUI”. Fast forward to today, and the vice president of Samsung SDS’ cyber security team – Han Sung-Won – together with the head of IBM’s Asian-Pacific sales team – Roman Tuma – have signed a new deal, forming a partnership in order to provide security services to clients in the utility and energy industry. While separate from their KNOX initiative it shows commitment from Samsung.
Today, Samsung SDS and IBM have announced their newfound partnership. Following the agreement, Samsung SDS will provide clients with IBM’s X-Force Exchange cloud-based threat intelligence platform for researching the latest global security threats, and the Korean tech giant will also serve customers in the utility and energy industries with IBM’s total security framework, which can collect data for analysis from all the sensors in a production line, all the while protecting networks, applications, and end-points. According to Samsung SDS and IBM, “the key to success” in the utility and energy industry is to protect the backbone infrastructure and to maintain safety on the system against ageing hardware equipment.
IBM’s vice president added that IBM’s top-of-the-line security solutions combined with Samsung SDS’ expertise in the South Korean market will allow the two companies to provide competitive security services. Meanwhile, IBM together with SK C&C is also working on launching its AI platform, Watson, in South Korea this week. The two companies will apparently develop data analysis solutions based on natural language semantic analysis and machine learning by the end of the year, and reportedly they will also build a Watson cloud platform at SK’s Pangyo datacenter. As for IBM and Samsung, there’s no telling when exactly they will begin offering security solutions for the local energy and utility industry, but it’s quite clear that IBM is getting increasingly involved with the South Korean IT market. Samsung might turn out to be one of the best partners for this endeavor, as both Samsung and IBM have a reputation for trying to innovate, and last year both companies ranked much higher than Apple in this regard, at least based on their patent activities.