VietNamNet Bridge – It was not by chance that Steve Ballmer, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, when visiting Vietnam last May, decided to cooperate with Vietnamese Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technologies (FPT) to develop cloud computing services in Vietnam.

Microsoft hopes that the cooperation would be the first step in its effort to bring cloud computing to Vietnam. Once Microsoft keeps a keen eye on Vietnam, this means that the nation becomes a potential market for service providers, while small and medium enterprises would be the first target of the service providers.

After Microsoft, IBM and Intel have also announced recently that they will develop cloud computing in Vietnam.

IBM Vietnam on October 27, joining forces with ICT Partnership Club, organized a workshop on cloud computing development in Vietnam. Tran Viet Huan, a senior executive of IBM Vietnam, said that in America and Europe, the markets have been heating up with cloud computing, while leading technology groups such as Microsoft, IBM, Google and Intel are trying to expand their influences in developing cloud-based IT services. Therefore, Huan said, Vietnamese enterprises should think of developing their business based on the new technology which is followed by the whole world.

According to Huan, the biggest advantage of cloud computing is that it helps enterprises, especially small and medium ones, save money. With cloud computing, services, software products and applications will be put on Internet or enterprises to use, while enterprises will only have to pay service fees for that. This means that they will not have to pay money to purchase whole software products or applications. They also will not have to spend money to hire information technology officers for monthly equipment maintenance.

Huan cited a survey conducted by IBM on 1000 chief information officer (CIO) in June 2009. The question was: “Why are you interested in cloud computing?” The CIOs gave three main reasons. First, cloud computing can help reduce expenses on IT. Second, it allows enterprises to shorten the time of launching services into the market. And third, cloud computing helps enterprises automate the services they provide, thus helping in minimizing errors.

Not ready yet

Lam Nguyen Hai Long, Managing Director of QTSC Online under Quang Trung Software Park Development Company, also said that Vietnamese enterprises should think of leasing IT services, as this way enterprises will not have to all four things. They will not have to spend money on server system, pay royalties, configure or set up servers, and pay for the equipment maintenance.

However, Long Vietnam is still insufficiently prepared for cloud computing. In October, QTSC Online conducted a survey on the readiness of Vietnamese enterprises for IT service leasing. 26 percent of enterprises said they would accept to pay 5000 dong for every leased mail account, 40 percent will accept to pay from 5000-10,000 dong, 21 percent pay over 10,000 dong, while the remaining enterprises have not made decisions.

The figures show that Vietnamese enterprises have begun thinking of leasing services, but are still not ready to do so. “However, I think that the service leasing in Vietnam will eventually start to develop faster,” he said.

Enterprises are still not ready for IT services leasing, because they fear being too dependent on service providers. Therefore, they may have to face high risks in information security. Will the information be leaking? Will cloud computing service providers react quickly enough in emergency cases? A lot of such questions have been raised.

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon