Microsoft opens new office in downtown Seoul

November 13, 2013
Microsoft Korea workers play a motion-capture game at the firm’s new head office in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, Tuesday. Watching them are U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, left, and Microsoft Korea CEO Kim James Woo, second from left. / Yonhap

Microsoft Korea workers play a motion-capture game at the firm’s new head office in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, Tuesday. Watching them are U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, left, and Microsoft Korea CEO Kim James Woo, second from left. (Yonhap)

By Kim Yoo-chul

Microsoft (MS) Korea opened its new office Tuesday.

The opening of the so-called “Free Style Workplace” marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of its first Korean office.

“Our head office was recently moved to the K-Twin Tower in Gwanghwamun, downtown Seoul. This means our new history will start from here,” said Angela SeungYeon Lee, spokeswoman of MS Korea.

“The main theme of the new office is to bring creative inputs from employees amid changing needs from our customers.”

Company official Chung Woo-jin said, “We are the leader in pursuing creative working style. We are collaborating with major consumer electronics companies, including Samsung, LG and SK, to save costs and boost efficiency.”

Mentioning its latest decision to buy the once handset-giant Nokia of Finland, Chung said MS is seeking to become a trusted device solution-providing company. “We are embracing change as a chance,” he said.

MS has identified mobility, social, big data and cloud as the four mega trends that will top the global technology industry over the next decade.

The U.S. firm suffered a steep downturn recently, hit by the rapid rise of Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

Amid its continued restructuring, MS’ corporate software sector helped it realize a significant sales boost, much to the surprise of both investors and analysts, as it reported a 17-percent profit increase for the first quarter of fiscal 2013.

Impressed by the recovery, it is pushing to spend more on marketing campaigns for its Windows tablets. It is talking with LG Electronics about releasing more devices that run on its Windows system.

One Comment

  1. 신경철

    October 29, 2015 at 1:09 AM

    October 29, 2015

    Dear Microsoft Manager,

    It is my pleasure to have an opportunity to write a message to your esteemed company, since I have had long experiences with Microsoft on my life.

    A couple of months ago I had purchased an original CD of Window 10 Program and have enjoyed using a lot of systems along with many ‘game items’ with my family. I really appreciate for your good development of game items. However, I found that most of game items seemed to have been made for junior users (who have a speedy and good hand skills) only, but not seniors. Because, (for example) my family appeal that it is very hard to work out even the easy part of games in time.

    Moreover, as the games were organized so that the gamer can work out in stage escalating grade, nobody could proceed for the next games unless the ongoing game is successful. Therefore, I noted many gamers
    feel some irritations.

    Besides, I coud not use many other games as there are good enough explanations about the games for using.

    In this case, I sincerely reuest you to consider the situations of users and make better and easy items for poor users and seniors, and to distribute them to good users by Up-grade of Window 10, as soon as possible.

    Best regards,

    K. C. Shin
    Seongnam City, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea

    P.S. I hope to have your kind response against above message if possible.