© Infraware

Today, we’re going to introduce Infraware, a leading office software provider. Let’s hear from Sohn Seung-woo, the head of the Service Business Team at Infraware. 

Infraware has been developing office software for the last 20 years since its foundation in 1997. It was listed on Korea’s tech-heavy secondary bourse, KOSDAQ, in October 2005. Based on its distinctive software technologies, the global IT solution and service provider has constantly taken up new challenges in pursuit of innovations. 

The company’s flagship product, Polaris Office, has been preinstalled on some 1 billion smart devices made by global manufacturers, including Samsung, LG, HTC and Huawei. In 2014, Polaris Office was launched globally as cloud-based office software that enables users to store, open and edit documents from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, anywhere and anytime. 

Infraware, a first-generation Korean software developer, had an ambitious dream of becoming a globally dominant firm, like Microsoft. For its first business model, the company developed a solution that allows users to print a web page exactly as it appears on screen. 

It was not until 2001 when Infraware gained some recognition by developing a mobile browser, which enables users to browse the Internet on their mobile phones. The company began to supply its mobile browser for use on feature phones to local mobile carriers such as LG Telecom and SK Telecom in 2003 and 2004, respectively, accounting for 70 percent of the wireless application protocol or WAP browser market in Korea. 

As a leading software developer, Infraware attempted to develop another innovative product, in line with the emergence of smartphones. The attempt proved greatly successful, resulting in tens of millions of subscribers all around the world. 

At present, Infraware’s cloud-based Polaris Office is used by 89 million subscribers in 238 countries, reeling in 30-thousand new subscribers every day. The total number of subscribers is expected to surpass 100 million within the year. More than 2 million customers worldwide use the Polaris Office software daily. Through this cloud-based, free-of-charge office suite, an accumulated 1.2 billion documents have been formed and more than 500-thousand new documents are being created per day. 

Another mobile office solution, Polaris Office Enterprise, provides enhanced productivity and document security. With this product, Infraware is collaborating with some 60 global mobile device management firms and corporate customers providing security solutions, including IBM and Symantec. Polaris Office Enterprise is also supplied to large Korean companies such as Samsung and LG as well as public institutions including the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Korea Housing Finance Corporation and the Korea Electric Power Corporation. 

Infraware has successfully transformed itself into a global software provider. Its signature product, Polaris Office, has been selected as the Apple App Store’s “App of the Year” for two consecutive years, reflecting its global popularity. So why is this mobile office solution used so widely? 

© Infraware

Polaris Office runs on only one engine, but it allows the editing of widely-used files such as Word, HWP and TXT and the viewing of PDF files. As it fully supports various file formats, it can process large data files pretty fast. Thanks to the free, cloud-based productivity suite app, users can open and edit documents regardless of the time and place. Infraware has more than 100 patents in Korea.

Other than the customers’ email address, Polaris Office does not collect any sensitive personal information. It uses Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud computing service provider, to offer its services in a safe and stable manner. To ensure greater security, Infraware obtained the ISO 27001 certification for information security management.

Based on its extensive experience and expertise in the development of software, Infraware was able to develop an office application that makes it possible to easily and conveniently open and edit different formats of documents for PCs in mobile environment. 

With the development of information and technology, people often need to write and edit documents outside the office using mobile devices like smartphones and tablet PCs. They also need to work on different office formats such as Microsoft Office, Hangul Word Processor or HWP and Adobe PDF files. If you want to view documents from a format you don’t use, you need a particular file viewer. But using Polaris Office, you can open and edit existing office formats without having to run any viewers. The best part is that you can do this for free. This is possible because Infraware uses the same engine to develop software for both mobile devices and PC, unlike other firms that typically develop an office suite for PC first and then create a mobile version separately. So Infraware’s cross-platform mobile office solution boasts outstanding compatibility with all kinds of documents. 

It comes as no surprise then that global companies are paying close attention to the developer of the innovative software. 

Many companies began to show interest in advertisement space on Polaris Office in 2018. Currently, a number of global firms, including Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Honda, Nike and L’Oreal, are promoting their advertisements on Polaris Office. By the third quarter of this year, we plan to improve the advertising fee system so firms hoping to show their advertisements on Polaris Office can make contracts directly with us and therefore lower their marketing costs. 

We’re also regularly working on search engine optimization and App Store optimization so Polaris Office can be more visible to potential customers on Google and the App Store. 

With the number of overseas customers on the rise, Polaris Office opened its domestic online store last year and a global one early this year. It is used in nearly 240 countries, but we carry out various promotion activities tailored specifically to 20 countries, including South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia, Brazil and Mexico. 

Polaris Office has the largest share in the global mobile office application market. In fact, more than 75 percent of Infraware’s sales came from overseas in 2018, enabling the company to become the first Korean office software developer to receive the 10 million dollar Export Tower award. 

Infraware is not satisfied with the feat, though. It will advance into a wider market to provide more people with its free and convenient office software that can accommodate multiple platforms and devices. For starters, it will take part in the “Japan IT Week Spring” that kicks off in Tokyo this week. 

We’re going to showcase various office products at the Japan IT Week Spring. About 1.5 million Japanese people use our cloud-based Polaris Office, with the daily number of new subscribers exceeding 300. I believe Polaris Office will meet the needs of a large number of Japanese customers. We’re going to research Japan’s information technology market during the trade show this week and we’re looking forward to making business contracts with many companies. 

We’ll reduce obstacles, like time, place and format, which stand in the way of using documents. Infraware’s ultimate goal is to lead the global market by allowing many more users all over the world to conveniently open and edit documents across different platforms anywhere and anytime. 

Infraware has been walking a single path as an office software developer for the past two decades. Armed with its high-tech acumen, the company will certainly be able to expand its global presence even further.