Samsung SDS Unlock PaaS With IBM Red Hat OpenShift

Agnes: Welcome everybody to an episode of the Game- Changing series. I'm today here in Seoul Korea at Samsung SDS, and I'm joined by two fabulous guests here today, Daniel and Ruth. Thank you for being here. Daniel Paik is the Executive Vice President at Samsung SDS for Samsung Cloud Platform Development. Hi Daniel, and thanks for having us.

Daniel Paik: Thank you.

Agnes: And Ruth is the managing director globally for the Samsung- IBM partnership sponsor for the overall Samsung Group at IBM. Thank you also Ruth for being here.

Ruth: Thanks for having me Agnes.

Agnes: Today, so as we are at Samsung SDS, maybe let me start a little bit by just sharing who is Samsung SDS? It's actually a very famous company, but just for the global audience to just share a bit of perspective. Samsung SDS is the largest system integrator here in Korea, offering a wide area of IT, technical services, logistics services, and being an independent company, but still part of Samsung Group and pivoting to cloud technology and cloud technology services. And that's what we're going to talk about in a bit more depth here today as part of this episode. Maybe to dive a little bit deeper, Ruth, if you are okay with that?

Ruth: Sure.

Agnes: Let's get started with the partnership and the history between Samsung and IBM.

Ruth: Excellent question. Thanks Agnes. So the IBM- Samsung partnership has spanned multiple decades over 30 years and really covers from cradle to grave, the full spectrum of innovation, whether it's our collaboration with Samsung around their mobile business, their 5G network business, and then pulling the string all the way through to innovation and research even before things come to market, whether it's with quantum computing or with our semiconductor business collaboration that we've had over multiple decades. The underpinning foundation of all of our collaboration has been grounded on a focus on being open, secure, and innovative. And we've been able to pull that string through across all of the many, many businesses that Samsung has. What we are so excited in this collaboration that we have with Samsung SDS is how we extend that into the cloud and drive that at scale globally. Obviously in the local market, but also with multiple enterprises around the world.

Agnes: It's very exciting. And recently there was a signing of an MOU between Samsung SDS and IBM. Very exciting too. So maybe Daniel, can you elaborate a little bit what this MOU is about?

Daniel Paik: Yeah, yeah, sure. So at Samsung SDS, we really think technology should be open, and we really think that we should leverage and embrace open- source technologies as much as possible. And we also feel that in today's world where there is no dominant single public cloud player, our customers are really telling us, especially our enterprise customers, they're emphasizing that the need for multi- cloud, hybrid cloud, public, private, the combination of all of these different types of clouds, and to come up with solutions that address them. We feel that Red Hat OpenShift really sits at the forefront of enabling operators and developers to run their container- based applications in these complex cloud environments. And in addition, it really allows them to manage and migrate their applications across all of these different types of environments. So we're really excited with this MOU that we've signed today.

Agnes: That's really great, and you've explained really, really well why architecturally it's so exciting. So maybe Ruth, let's talk about the timing just for a moment. Why is now a good time for Samsung SDS and IBM to embark on this journey and sign this MOU?

Ruth: Yeah, great question. So the market has been very clear in their feedback to us, to Samsung as well as throughout the industry around this focus on having choice, having optionality and working with partners that are going to work with them side by side in their transformation journey around technology. Not all clients are able to move to the cloud immediately. Some will never go there. And so creating choice, listening to the marketplace and being open and collaborative in our approach is so important. And what we value and appreciate around some of the core fundamentals that Daniel just mentioned from a Samsung SDS standpoint is to be open and to listen to the marketplace, but also being able to adapt to those solutions to the specific needs in a specific region, which is what Samsung brings to bear in our collaboration around our container technology through Red Hat and the broader innovations that we drive around. Again, being open, secure, and innovative allows us to drive that value creation at scale.

Agnes: That's fantastic. Well said. So we have a great vision and ambition together with Start at the Journey now with MOU. How do we bring it alive Daniel? What does it take?

Daniel Paik: Yeah, yeah, great question. I mean, as Ruth just mentioned, we really are excited. We're excited to work with IBM. We want to bring a new product. We want to take Red Hat OpenShift on Samsung Cloud platform. We want to provide this as a product offering so that our customers can leverage and bring the power of Red Hat OpenShift into our cloud. We feel that our customers will be able to operate and manage and build container- based applications in SAP. And we also think this opens up the possibility of possibly migrating existing applications that are currently running in OpenStack into our Samsung Cloud platform. And they can leverage our platform either as a standalone cloud or we'll work within the context of a multi- cloud or a hybrid cloud environment. We're always happy to talk to our customers and our potential customers to help build and design and architect the best solution and the best combination of cloud for them. And we're confident that through the use of Red Hat OpenShift, we can bring these solutions to our customers.

Agnes: I love this term, the best combination of cloud. That's a very good term. If we think a little bit ahead into the future, what's the big ambition behind the partnership around cloud with IBM that Samsung SDS embarked on?

Daniel Paik: Yeah, we talked about some pretty cool stuff today, but I really think this is the beginning of a long- term relationship between IBM and Samsung SDS. Technology is always changing. It's changing very rapidly, and some of the things that we see a company with such deep technical expertise, deep history, and that's IBM really gives us the opportunity to adapt in the future to emerging technology changes. And I really foresee much bigger things in the future as well as additional areas of impact that we can do in collaborate together. So I'm really excited about both this MOU as well as the future that we have in terms of our long- term partnership going forward.

Agnes: That's fantastic. That's game changing in essence. Anything to add Ruth from IBM's perspective?

Ruth: Yeah, well, you and Daniel said it well, but the net is that the potential is untapped. Our opportunity is significant not only as we integrate our solutions and execute on the common values that we have in place, but as we further extend this with joint go- to- market offerings that can be scalable and relevant for thousands of clients globally. So we are very, very excited in our collaboration and very looking forward to the success that we'll continue to drive together.

Agnes: That's great. Daniel, thank you very much for the partnership. Thanks for joining us today, having us here today at the premises of Samsung SDS. Ruth, also thank you very much.