VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) has announced that it would help 20 information technology (IT) firms to implement the quality management system in accordance with CMMi standards (Capability Maturity Model Integration).

CMMi is the standards based on which experts can assess the maturity of the software production process, initiated by SEI (the US Software Engineering Institute), now being applied worldwide.

The possession of international certificates like CMMi would help software and digital content standardize their production process, manage the quality, and obtain the international recognition about the capability of IT firms. And once the firms are internationally recognized, their products would be more competitive in the world market.

Nguyen Trong Duong, Director of the Information Technology Department under MIC, said at a recent workshop that MIC would also support 40 firms in implementing ISO 27001, and help train the skills for software production.

ISO 27001 is a part of the growing ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards, is an information security management system (ISMS) standard published in October 2005 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC),

Each of the IT firms would be propped up 25,000 dollars to implement CMMi, of which 15,000 dollars would be spent on the consultancy on building up and applying the production procedures in accordance with CMMi. Meanwhile, the other 10,000 dollars would be spent on the evaluation and certificate granting.

Meanwhile, the IT firms implementing ISO 27001 would receive 20,000 dollars. They would receive 12,000 dollars to build up the ISO 27001 procedure. Meanwhile, the remaining 8000 dollars would be spent on evaluation and certificates.

“Only four Vietnamese enterprises have ISO 27001 certificates to date. Especially, most of the enterprises are commercial banks, and there are few software firms,” Duong said.

According to Doan Duc De, a consultancy expert of Uu Viet Quoc consultancy firm, 12 enterprises have met CMMi standards since the beginning of 2011 to the end of June 2012.

Of the 12 enterprises, TMA Solution reached the fifth level, the highest one, while the other three met the third level, namely ISB Vietnam, Fujinet, GHP Far East and Softtech.

De said that one of the biggest problems of enterprises is the regular personnel changes at the enterprises. Meanwhile, other enterprises sent unqualified staff to the projects.

He also said that some companies met difficulties in making payment, or was not capable to continue the projects, thus having to cancel the contracts.

In related news, MIC has released the 2012 White Book on the information technology and communication market in Vietnam which shows that the total revenue of the IT industry in 2011 was 13.7 billion dollars, up by 79 percent over 2010.

This has been attributed to the sharp growth of the hardware and electronics industry, which brought 82 percent of the total revenue of the whole IT industry. The economic recession has badly affected both the telecommunication and software industries.

The total revenue of the telecom sector was 7 billion dollars, a decrease of nearly 26 percent from 2010. The worrying thing is that the revenue from mobile services has dropped from 5.7 billion dollars to 5.4 billion dollars. Meanwhile, the revenue from the software industry reached 1.17 percent, representing a 10 percent growth rate. However, analysts have pointed out that the growth rate was very modest if compared with the high growth rates of 25-30 percent gained in the previous years.

Compiled by C. V