Release of IE7 Korean Edition is approaching. Even with concerns of MS' monopolistic embedded search engine, domestic portals are confident that users will still prefer their search engine over the MSN.

IE7, Korean Edition, which is expected to be launched in Korea on Nov. 14, was postponed for one more day to 15th due to MS download construction.

In addition, auto update feature that was originally scheduled to be made available with the release of the IE7 will be pushed back until second qtr. next year, so users must download the IE7 only from official MS homepage.

IE7, with improved security and search engine, was targeted for lawsuits with bashing from Google and Yahoo over possible monopoly in search engine industry.

With that concern, MS Korea signed MOU with 25 different domestic portals working to retain its relations with the South Korean portals.

MS, basing from popularity report, selected top 25 portals and expressed that they will be included in its choice of search engine list for the users to choose. About 20 firms agreed to its offer so far.

"MS will continue to cooperate with Korean portals. Just like Yahoo’s optimized IE7, we are committed to work with others and currently focusing our support for the top firms." affirmed by MS Korea Client Business CEO, Junsuk Park.

Domestic Korean portals, looking at IE7 as an opportunity
In relation to the IE7 issues at hand, Korean portals expressed no concerns. Their position, even with MSN as a default search window, they believe users will simply choose to crossover to theirs because of their superiority.

Except for nate.com and Paran.com through MS’ cooperation, Naver and Daum have established their links to MS search engine and will offer improved toolbar features to retain their share of the pie.

Korean portals expect to benefit from added convenience for the users with new IE7 search box placement (upper right corner), not to mention option given to user to freely choose existing engines in the search box.

Naver is betting on their existing users to switch the MSN default search window to theirs due to familiarity. Naver is also working to release own optimized IE7 version but not counting out the possibility of working with MS for now. Naver will continue to monitor the situation after release of the IE7.

Daum, in hope to make users to choose its search engine, has been actively promoting its advantageous 6.25 million cafe blogs and their UCC contents with original word search service over other sites.

Empas.com, even setup its own IE7 task force team to countermeasure against the release and think will provide even more information to search engine users. Empas will also make available download patch for its existing users to easily switch over from IE7.

Nate.com too is working on installation patch that can overwrite MSN default settings when their ‘nateon’ and toolbar programs are being installed.

Paran, need to come up with plan to be included
However, Paran was not included in the choice of IE7 search engine box. Paran said it is waiting for official MS responses to the MOU signing with the MS (to be included in the Korean IE7 browser) but has not heard anything particular in regard to the release of IE7, Korean Edition on the 15th.

Paran’s official said, "We have not heard of the official release on the 15th and waiting to hear official response from MS. If we do not get included in the Korean Edition IE7, it will be a huge blow."

In response, MS Korea CEO Park expressed, "We have already sent out official notifications to top 25 traffic portals. Any portal that did not get on the search box should be able to do so through MOU contract."