A showroom in the lobby of Samsung Electronics’ headquarters [in Seoul] glistens and beeps with its latest gadgets and ambitions.
Visitors can put on goggles to watch characters jump out on 3-D TVs, or shuffle their feet on an interactive LED floor. There is a lineup of Samsung flip phones from the past decade. Samples of Samsung cameras and tablet computers are laid out for the public to play with. Foreign dignitaries and other VIPs often tour the site.
The display is a tribute to the 41-year history of South Korea’s largest company. It is also a showy ad underscoring its eagerness to shed its image as a humdrum manufacturer and transform into a game-changing tech company.
The evolution is ongoing, as Samsung derives a large chunk of its revenue from commodity products such as semiconductors and computer monitors. But eyeing a huge opportunity in the mobile Internet and digital media, Samsung has been increasingly telling the world that it fancies itself a pace-setting software and design-centric company that does not merely follow others’ innovations.
“Having a diverse array of services and products for the mobile Internet is becoming more important, and we must become a front-runner in this changing paradigm,” Samsung Electronics CEO Gee-Sung Choi told his employees earlier this year. “Amid such a rapidly evolving business environment, creativity that moves ahead of the changes is required to sustain growth.”
Samsung has just released the latest symbol of its creative ambition in the U.S.: the Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch tablet computer that runs on Google’s Android operating system. It is designed to compete with the likes of iPad and other on-the-go tablet computers. Samsung hopes to sell more than 1 million units globally by the end of 2010.
Also attesting to Samsung’s competitiveness in the smartphone market are the brisk sales of Galaxy S, released…