SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 31, 2019 -- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and IBM announced today at the Samsung Developer Conference, a new joint platform leveraging IBM Cloud and AI capabilities, and Samsung's mobile offerings. The collaboration between the two companies brings together IBM's capabilities with the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem for today's enterprise customers. "The mobile industry is undergoing a dramatic transformation and opening up new ways of business by bringing innovative technologies like 5G, AI and IoT to enterprises," said DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics. "We believe open collaboration is central to unlocking these opportunities and look forward to driving digital transformation for our enterprise clients in the 5G era with IBM and Samsung's mobile devices and connected services." Today's announcement is designed to bring together IBM's cloud innovations and Samsung's Galaxy devices ecosystems, including Galaxy Tabs, Galaxy smartphones, and Galaxy Watches.

"We think this could be the third wave where you have programmable objects blanketing your home," said David Eun, president of Samsung NEXT, Samsung's investment group, during an interview at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ D. Live technology conference. Companies across tech have been rushing to launch products and software for the so-called smart home. Inc.'s Alexa and Alphabet Inc.'s Google Assistant have made it possible to embed artificial intelligence in everyday home devices, letting people unlock doors and dim lights with their voices. Those companies and Apple Inc. are launching smart speakers, as well. Samsung has an inherent hardware advantage in this arena because it sells an array of appliances.

Samsung's Windows-based Galaxy Books, unveiled Sunday at Mobile World Congress, point to a critical weakness in the company's multiple-OS strategy. The company uses Windows 10 in PCs, Android in smartphones, and Tizen across wearables and smart appliances. This has led to a lack of coherence among Samsung devices, in contrast to the near-seamless product integration that has fueled Apple's success as the world's most valued company. The specific issues with the Galaxy Books are relatively small, but are nevertheless symptoms of the larger problem: walls among devices and an inconsistent user experience across the company's product line. The lack of a broad app ecosystem for Samsung devices has not helped. Samsung has taken a siloed approach to product development, said Werner Goertz, lead Samsung analyst at Gartner.

Samsung Electronics announced Sunday that it will include an artificial intelligence assistance service in its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphones. In addition to the Galaxy smartphone, the virtual assistance will also be incorporated into other products, including home appliances and wearable technology devices, according to media reports. "Our Galaxy smartphones don't provide services that enable consumers to order pizza or coffee, but does provide third party applications. But the new AI platform will enable consumers to do things that they would usually do through a separate third party application," Samsung reportedly said in a statement. Samsung, which plans to launch the Galaxy S8 early next year, recently announced the acquisition of the San Jose, California-based AI company Viv Labs, which was founded by the creators of Apple's Siri service.

Samsung has joined the race to develop an artificially intelligent assistant for its gadgets after buying the firm behind Apple's Siri. The South Korean tech firm announced its plans to buy Viv Labs, which helped to develop the iPhone's voice assisted software. According to Samsung, it wants to incorporate the Californian firm's Viv AI assistant into its Galaxy smartphones and expand voice assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices. Samsung has announced plans to buy Viv Labs, which helped to develop the iPhone's voice assisted program. San Jose-based Viv Labs Inc was one of the firms which helped to develop Apple's voice assisted program, Siri.