The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) will sign a co-operation agreement with Microsoft Vietnam to provide a special offer for Vietnamese enterprises when they buy Microsoft products before the Law on Intellectual Property takes effect on July 1, 2006. This is to help enterprises promote their application of information technology.
Assigned by the Government to provide guidelines for Vietnamese enterprises to promote their application of information technology, VCCI has organised many activities, such as seminars and support programmes for enterprises, providing guides for them to observe the Law on Intellectual Property. The chamber’s co-operation with Microsoft aims at the target. Accordingly, VCCI has proposed the programme to provide the ever best prices for enterprises which want to upgrade their existing software or to use licensed software products.
Ms Mai Thi Quynh Hoa, director of the Small - Midmarket Solutions & Partner Group, Microsoft Vietnam, during the promotion campaign, enterprises would be able to buy Microsoft’s software products, including Office, Project, Visio, OneNote and Windows XP OEM at the most attractive prices ever. Apart from price cuts, Microsoft and its agents will answer all customers’ questions about technical support and licensing policies.
Regarding Microsoft’s licensing policies, at a seminar on software asset management which was recently held by VCCI and the Enterprise Software Alliance, Mr Benjamin Yann, licensing manager of Microsoft Vietnam, introduced volume licensing policies of Microsoft in Vietnam. He said that when users buy licences for volume of software products they could by set up kits separately but set up disks were mostly free. So, licence owners are identified with license certificates, which could access the website and PUR (product use rights).
Different from users of retail products and preinstalled software on new PCs, enterprises and organisations buying volume licensing software will have previous versions of software and receive free training services, trial and back-up services, and have a right to use a second copy of software. Furthermore, enterprises can customise language for convenient use. Microsoft provides software guarantee with 24/7 support services for troubleshooting, training tickets and upgrades for the Windows operating system.
After efforts made by the Vietnamese Government in fighting pirated software, the Law on Intellectual Property was issued and takes effect on July 1, 2006. Part of the law implementation is the organisation of combats against copyright violation with heavy penalties applied for individuals and organisations violate the law. This aims to reduce software piracy from 92 per cent in the previous years to 84 per cent in 2006. In January 2006, six ministries, including the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development signed a programme of action on preventing and fighting intellectual property piracy in the 2006-2010 period, which has been implemented with inspections of software licences in organisations and enterprises in Vietnam. Alongside with the perfection of the legal corridor and efforts of local authorised agencies, the co-operation of major information technology firms in the world, such as Microsoft in helping Vietnamese enterprises use cheap services and products is very important. Microsoft’s price cut programme will encourage Vietnamese enterprises improve their awareness of licensed software.
Nguyen Thoa
Vietnamese
