Recommendations from the commercialization of government-sponsored telecommunications R&D with multiple development cycles in Korea

A number of government-sponsored large-scale R&D projects in the telecommunications sector have been carried out in Korea. Among them is the time division exchange (TDX) project that lasted for more than 15 years. The project has two characteristics: the commercialization of government-sponsored R&D and the commercialization of R&D with multiple development cycles. This paper describes these characteristics of the project from various viewpoints: product development strategy, the role of each organization, success factors of each product, the classification of commercial products by commercialization model, and technology transfer strategies encouraging participation of manufacturing firms. We conclude with several recommendations.