http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGU...&NEWS_ID=107494

maybe i should ask what are vietnam's main income, and what others industry are you people trying to develope now?

i know its off topic, but didnt want to start another meaning less thread.

Software, electronics, textile and clothing, footwear, seafood, agricultural produces, automotive export etc

softwares.......

its pretty hard to compete with the indians, they have a very early head start. Or is vietnam developing its software industry like CHINA, Isreal, Japan and Korean (maybe more) so they dont have to depend on microsoft that much, and be more dependent onself?

Actually Vietnamese have won contests in the Microsoft Imagine competition.

I think Vietnamese main selling point for software on how cheap it is.

DELETE.

but then it also depends, on what softwares you are making. yeah?

I mean nomatter how much we hate microsoft, we still prefer to use it instead of macintosh. Personaly i think the game market is the easiest to enter, people are willing to try new games, on the other hand people are not that willing to use other OS and just keep using microsoft office, mainly because it is widely used already.

I am not expert on this, i am just giving a comment as a consumer.

Anyway, so is vietnam developing its own brands, or are they being hired to work for overseas company?

It has been said that Vietnam might just become another competitor of Indian software industry. The Indian advantage is in English, which results in American and British outsourcing to India. Vietnam's advantage is that labour is even quite cheap in relative to India's, and that it sits right in the middle of East and South East Asia. Vietnam and Japan also is very close and Japan is helping to train Vietnamese IT personnel.

Apoligies to TDScorpion for stealing his thread. Here is a Vietnamese who beat every team in every country in the Microsoft Imagine Software contest.

"USA Student Wins 2003 Imagine Cup Competition



Winners of Inaugural Worldwide Programming Contest Announced At TechEd Europe 2003; University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Tu Nguyen Wins $25,000 Grand Prize With Application Demonstrating Web Services Innovation and ‘Real-World’ Applicability



BARCELONA - 1 July 2003

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Tu Nguyen, a student from University of Nebraska-Omaha, has won the first-ever worldwide Imagine Cup student programming competition. Nguyen, who built a multi-lingual restaurant application called the Point of Delivery System (iPODS), beat out over 100,000 students from more than 25 countries and five continents to win the $25,000 Imagine Cup grand prize. All Imagine Cup winners were announced today during a keynote address by Jean-Philippe Courtois, Microsoft EMEA Chief Executive Officer, at TechEd Europe 2003.



Competing student teams, all of whom have applications on display at the event here, presented projects to a panel of independent judges yesterday. Judges declared Nguyen the winner based on innovation and creativity, implementation of the Microsoft .NET Framework and Web services, commercial viability, and the quality of the individual presentation. Nguyen's iPODS application helps restaurants overcome multi-language barriers by enabling waiters to use a PDA to take orders and transmit that information to the kitchen via Web services, where the orders are translated from English to the chef's native language. But perhaps the greater reward is the added boost Nguyen has received in launching a successful career in the technology industry - seven other restaurants in Omaha have commissioned Nguyen to deploy similar solutions, and now the City of Omaha has expressed interest in using the application to serve sports fans in the city's sports arena.



"The process of deliberation was extremely difficult, as we were impressed by the level of sophistication involved with all of the applications," said Stephen Forte, one of the Imagine Cup judges. "All students that we've seen are well-positioned to take the next step toward successful careers, in terms of building a business and making a difference in the 'real world.'"



The team from India took home $15,000 by coming in second place. The India team created an application called "Sanjeevani," which integrates different mobile devices via Web services to increase collaboration in the medical field to empower health organizations to provide mission critical care and treatment. Two teams tied for third place - Singapore and the United Kingdom; both teams will receive the full $10,000 third-place prize.



"We are so proud of all the teams for coming through with creative and innovative solutions," said Morris Sim, director of the Academic Developer Group at Microsoft. "College students have a passion for solving problems using innovative technology. Imagine Cup provides students around the world everything they need to put their passion to work and turn their dreams of professional success into reality."



TechEd Europe 2003 features a foyer devoted exclusively to the Imagine Cup competition, in which, on Tuesday, all general attendees will have the opportunity to see student teams demonstrate their projects. Other teams who made the finals this year hail from Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, and Turkey. Information about all the competing student solutions is located at http://www.imaginecup.com. Plans for Imagine Cup 2004 are now underway.



About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device.



Microsoft, Imagine Cup and the Microsoft .NET Framework are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. "

http://www.sdgn.com/Default.asp?A1PID=57PD...43&URL=8666PDAM







Nguyen, who built a multi-lingual restaurant application called the Point of Delivery System (iPODS), beat out over 100,000 students from more than 25 countries and five continents to win the $25,000 Imagine Cup grand prize.

Amazingly.. Viet, In order to represent the US to compete at World Imagine World Cup, he must be a US champ ( he was).


Team India

Team Singapore

Team UK

Tu nguyen USA
Other Teams

Team Taiwan

Team Japan

Team China

Team Singapore

i read that thread already, but that doesn't make the vietnamese gov't want to be dependent on an american company, still.

I beleive that vietnamese won because he was good, not because microsoft wants to keep the vietnam market, and chose a viet to win.

Actually Vietnamese are opening companies in Japan with Japaense partners.

If you read the original article the Japanese government is giving benefits to Vietnamese who open businesses with Japanese as part owners as well.

Vietnam certainly has alot of potential. There are Vietnamese companies still in their infancy exporting their software as subcontractors or outsourcers to other industrialised countries.

well thats defintely good news, since the software market have been monololy enoughed, hopefully as software industies grows in other areas, it will bring the price down.

Yeah I think with increasing competition from other countries, Vietnamese and Japanese companies are merging to compete, and the Japanese government believes this may help them profit or save their IT industry by providing incentives to these joint companies.

And hopefully it will drive down piracy.

Exorbitant prices for Microsoft softwares are fostering piracy, which results in those companies crying foul.

Outsourcing To An Emerging Market: Vietnam
ResearchVietnam -

Outsourcing to Vietnam? It's a little known fact that leading industry lights such as IBM, Cisco, Sony, Nortel Networks and NTT have been successfully outsourcing to Vietnam for some time. IBM even went on the record in March saying it is in talks with the Vietnamese government about establishing its own development center. In addition, the US government has just signed its first deal to outsource software development to Vietnam.

Mizan Ab Rahman, general manager IBM Indochina, sums it up by saying: "Outsourcing to Vietnam is paying dividends for numerous multinational customers but new entrants should ensure they have access to reliable and independent information about Vietnam and the IT market."

IT Vietnam 2002: Outsourcing to an emerging market gives a frank assessment of Vietnam's potential to meet the offshore needs of multinational companies and includes the views of major players including Ford, Nortel Networks, Tata Consultancy Services and Aptech.

Commenting on the new report, Dan Stern, director Research Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, says: "We spent over six months investigating the IT industry in Vietnam and profiled over 50 software development firms. Our findings were mixed but there are pockets of excellence across sectors such as telecoms, finance, GIS and CAD. A whole stable of multinational companies are taking advantage of this but the wider corporate community remains unaware."

Nortel Networks is an example of one corporation that picked up on Vietnam's potential back in the 1990s. At present, the world's largest telecoms equipment manufacturer is outsourcing the development of a Java client that controls a high speed IP switch.

Commenting on the company's experience in Vietnam, Hung Trung, director, Software Engineering, Nortel Networks - Shasta IP Services Division, says: "Vietnam is well positioned to compete alongside Romania, India and China for outsourcing work given our experience. We did not have any reservations about working with Vietnam-based developers since the country has a vast pool of intellectual resources that remains largely untapped."

Quality human resources are one of Vietnam's key selling points. The country's education system has an implicit bias towards mathematics and logic that creates a ready supply of raw talent for the IT industry. But turning raw talent into deployable resources remains a work in progress. The skills gap is gradually being closed by overseas trainers such as Aptech, NIIT and Oracle, all of which are training thousands of Vietnamese programmers in dedicated centers across Vietnam. And last year, Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) became the first 100% foreign owned university to open its doors in Vietnam.

However, the key driver behind IT in Vietnam right now is the government. This may surprise some Vietnam-watchers given the country's reputation for cumbersome bureaucracy and the obstructive mentality of some of its officials. But in recent years the Communist Party of Vietnam has singled out the promotion of the software industry as a key plank of national development.

http://www.offshoredev.com/jsp/features_detail.jsp?fid=91


VN IT sector earned $B2 this year
INdia B$6- B$10
Labor cost in VN is 50% cheaper and quality is the same

true, pricacy is giving asians a really bad name, but seriosuily, if i buy a real version of Office and XP, thats like more than 2 months of my part time job wage already.

i am guilty of being a consumer of priacy, but just can't resist the HUGE price difference.

but i doubt that piracy will be demolished. SInce its still cheaper, but i think it will drive it down, not sure how much can it afffect the piracy industry.

Blockbuster recently retreated in Hong kong, because pirarcy is so serious. Imagine that a global company like blockbuster lost the war........

Who could resist? Instead of buying a Microsoft application for 400-600 bucks, we just buy it for 10 bucks from our local computer shop. How much of a saving is that?

Also, instead of buying PC games for 60-80 bucks, we just buy a crack version for 10 bucks and pass it around.

Sweet

Vietnamese companies are better off making corporate software instead of consumer ones. Businesses rarely pirate due to if they get caught they get serious fines. And corporate software costs hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars per liscence as well.

It's hard to make corporate software b/c there are already well established companies such Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, PeopleSoft, Sybase, etc. I think the best area VN should be focusing on is outsourcing, but then again VN got to go against India.

Looks like Vietnam is testing the waters for game development as well.

http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGU...&NEWS_ID=104531



Anyone read PC World Vietnam? This is the most popular PC Magazine in Vietnam and has articles about Vietnam's computer industry. Here's their website.

http://idgvietnam.com/

well vietnamese software companies can make partnerships with those big boys. A few years later, after the build up their reputation, they can start making products with their own brand.

Not just India my friend but also China!!!! And btw did you guys know most of Microsofts' employees are from india.

Outsourcing sux for us future software engineers and computer scientist.

The IT industry is already saturated, just look at the phililpines. There are heaps of IT graduates and IT proffessionals but no jobs

Lots of Viet IT fokes down at my Uni

Too bad their hardcore nerds

But Vietnam should do alright in the IT industry, Hopefully.

Actually the biggest hurdle I can see with Vietnam's software industry is IP (Intellectual Property) protection laws. Similarly, this is why China's software industry never really got off the ground.

However when it comes to programming it seems that the Indians, Russians and Vietnamese kick @$$ against the rest of the Asians. I know Japan is quite good at games, but it seems they are extremely quiet in the office/operating system industry as opposed to say other tech industries like automobile, computer hardware and electronics.

Ah..don't foreget those Germans, they are very good at programming also. Ever heard of CloneCD? One of the best program in breaking the CD copy protection. Yeah those Russians also kick @$$ when it comes to programming.