Bill Gates's Visit to Vietnam and Opportunity for Local IT

4:40:35 PM | 4/7/2006

April 22, 2006 will become an important milestone for Vietnam’s information technology (IT) co-operation with the first visit to Vietnam by the richest man in the world and president of Microsoft, Bill Gates. Vietnamese IT students and managers are eager for the event, hoping that the visit will promote the local IT industry to a new height.

In his meeting with Bill Gates during a visit to the US in June 2005, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said that Vietnam remained poor and difficult, but Vietnam was determined to reach technological peaks, in particular in IT.

Tran Viet Hoan, general director of the Saigon Software Development Joint Venture Company, said that Bill Gates’s visit was not only an exploration of the market after ten years since Microsoft opened its representative office in Vietnam, but also an initial basis for a possible entrance to Vietnam of many IT firms. This has a sound basis as an American IT giant, Intel, started to build a US$300 million chip manufacturing plant in Ho Chi Minh City.

“The name of Bill Gates often goes along with Microsoft and its software products, which have become popular all around the world. From a point of view of a student, I think that Microsoft’s operating system and office applications are superior to products of other firms,” said Bui Trung Hieu, monitor of IT Group 5, intake K47, IT Department of the Hanoi University of Technology. The large number of third firms’ software products running on the Windows platform is another advantage of Microsoft. Also, Microsoft’s programming tools have become popular thanks to their support to programmers. It is possible to say that Microsoft tools are now very popular with IT students and experts.

Vietnam is now a destination for powerhouses in the world, as they can solve their problem of a shortage of IT human resources. In comparison with many software exporting countries, such as India and China, Vietnam has the same advantage in IT human resources with low labour costs and industrious and skilled workers. However, to make bold decisions, IT investors have to take profits into account.

Piracy of software products, including Microsoft software products in Vietnam is pervasive. According to surveys of local and foreign organisations, pirated software products account for 90 per cent of all software in Vietnam. In a recent symposium with the press on the visit of Bill Gates, Deputy Minister of Post and Telematics Vu Duc Dam, said that the Vietnamese Government was determined to take measures to combat software piracy. The measures are not temporary, prior to the visit of Microsoft’s president or Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but necessary for the development of Vietnamese IT.

However, it is necessary to note that Vietnamese people’s income remains low while prices of Microsoft software in Vietnam are as high as in developed countries. Many people suggested that co-operation and support from Microsoft over the past ten years are only basic conditions for the development of the local IT industry. Such programmes as ‘Narrowing the Digital Gap’ are just an initial basis and programmes to help the provinces of Binh Duong, Quang Ngai and Thai Binh aim at IT promotion instead of research and development.

IT promotion is necessary but with the great potential of Microsoft, Vietnamese IT expects more, especially in the development of Microsoft’s applications, which are suitable for the budgets of Vietnamese people and exclusive to Vietnamese people.

Bill Gates’s visit is considered as an opportunity for the Vietnamese IT industry to impress Bill Gates in the hope that Microsoft will promote its investment in Vietnam and help Vietnam settle problems of pirated software, computerisation and IT application, promoting its co-operation with Vietnamese firms.