A plan by Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates to propel Word into the number one position in the Korean word processing market by persuading the market leader to dump its Hangul program, has run into problems. Two Korean investment companies have announced plans to buy Hangul and Company, the cash-strapped software group in which Microsoft planned a $20m investment. But when news was released that the company was to drop its best-selling Hangul word processing program in return for the investment, there was a patriotic outcry in Korea where national pride has been badly dented by the country’s economic problems. Lee Min-hwa, chairman of the Venture Enterprise Federation urged the company to accept his takeover for the sake of Hangul.
