In its push into gaming, the company also recently launched an app and a game pad that allows users to play online games on their smartphones or TVs".
WSJ: How important is software for you?
Mr. Hong: Software is a critical component of course. If you look at our R&D structure, there are a lot more software engineers than hardware engineers. The investment amount we are making in software R&D is huge. However, probably from a consumer perspective there is room to improve to deliver a unique experience. That's the area that we're really trying to focus on more.
My organization's goal is to foster the software platform to bring innovation on top of our hardware.
WSJ: Where are you hiring mostly?
Mr. Hong: Software comes from many different areas—design, in addition to coding and software engineering.
In-house, we have a big data center and we recently set up a big data platform to collect data on user patterns on our devices. We're looking for talented people who have better knowledge than we do because it's a new area.
WSJ: How important is Tizen (an operating system that Samsung is codeveloping with Intel Corp. and others)?
Mr. Hong: Tizen is another platform that we'd like to offer to the market as one of the multiple platforms.
Internally, we'd like to have a common platform throughout all of our consumer products including mobile, television and even home appliances.
We believe HTML 5 will be emerging more and more as the platform so that lots of applications and services can be implemented easily based on HTML 5. But it will take some time. So it's another area we're making an investment to offer multiple choice to consumers.
WSJ: What do you think is your timetable for Tizen?
Mr. Hong: We already launched a wearable device using Tizen. The company is also thinking about other products using the Tizen platform.
When the time comes to commercialize some products we'll let you know, but we definitely plan to expand into other product portfolios.
WSJ: But not necessarily with the consumer brand Tizen?
Mr. Hong: I don't necessarily think the name Tizen is an important brand to consumers. Integrating software with hardware to make a great product—that's what we want to communicate with consumers.
WSJ: What other areas is Samsung focused on when it comes to software?
Mr. Hong: We're going to collaborate with multiple hardware and software companies to bring interesting smart-home applications. We launched our first smart-home application this month. Samsung considers the Internet of Things [a network of smart devices that communicate with each other with little human intervention] as another huge area that we should actively participate in and bring some innovation.
WSJ: These services are only for Samsung devices or will you be platform-agnostic like Google?
Mr. Hong: At the moment, we'd like to create an experience uniquely on our device because the fundamental core part of our business is selling hardware. So the main purpose of this software innovation is to create value on our device. Later on, we might try something different but right now, that's our strategy.
