No longer being able to receive support from Korea after only two years, goes over to the United States to revitalize the startup
Acquired by SAP, keen to take over
One of SAP’s chief software is ‘SAP HANA’. The core of this software is from Korea.

SNU Professor Sang Kyun Cha developed a technology that could increase the speed of data processing by a maximum of ten thousand times in the 1990s. He founded a startup in 2000 and was authorized by the government as a startup, which allowed him to get a deduction in corporate tax and income tax and a prime rate for loans. However, various types of support from the government were stemmed two years later. A source from the IT industry commented, “The company was denied support and requalification as a startup although only two years had passed since its establishment.” To commercialize the foundation technology, a massive amount of money and time must be invested, but our government had failed to understand this, and had stuck to regulations.

In 2002, Professor Cha went over to Silicon Valley in the U.S. and founded a company based on this software. Soon after, global tech companies including SAP and Sun Microsystems were eager to acquire this company and Professor Cha sold the company to SAP, who showed the most interest.

SAP believed in the potential of this technology and invested money and manpower for six years, eventually succeeding in its commercialization in 2011. With this technology alone, sales for SAP amounted to 1.6 billion dollars (approximately 1.8 trillion won) in the first three years since the launch. Now this technology is acting as the framework for various customized software developed by SAP. It had begun its life in Korea, but failed to blossom here because of the myopia of looking no further than two years.

Source: http://ee.snu.ac.kr/community/news?bm=v&bbsidx=48561
Translated by: Jee Hyun Lee, English Editor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, jlee621@snu.ac.kr