KT, Naver, NHN threatened by entry of Amazon, Microsoft in S. Korea's public cloud market

Foreign tech giants Amazon and Microsoft are set to challenge the dominance of domestic companies in the cloud computing services market for South Korea's public sector with the government lowering the entry barrier.

The Ministry of Science and ICT wants to loosen regulations on cloud security certification so that businesses can provide cloud computing services to the government, even without physically separating cloud servers for the public and private sectors.

KT, Naver, NHN, and other domestic cloud service providers have expressed concern about foreign firms gaining a monopoly in the domestic market.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and tech firms from the United States and China have welcomed the proposed regulatory relief and have begun to seek experts in cloud computing services for the public sector.

According to reports, AWS has begun to hire additional employees to supplement its team in charge of cloud computing services for the public sector.

Microsoft is also said to be thinking about hiring more people to provide cloud computing services to the government.