Mr. Vu Duy Loi

VietNamNet Bridge – More than 20,000 computers used at Party agencies nationwide will replace Microsoft Office software with OpenOffice open source office software.

Vu Duy Loi, Director of the Information Technology Centre under the Party Central Committee’s Office, said that the replacement would begin in 2008.

The change from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice is set as a mission in the scheme to computerise operations of Party organs in the 2006-2010 period.

Cost savings is only one of the reasons for this change. The major target of the replacement is to improve the ability of the Vietnamese IT circle because the use of open source products like OpenOffice will create a new market for Vietnamese IT companies, according to Mr. Loi.

To prepare for this replacement, Mr. Loi said that the Party Central Committee Office and local Party agencies had invited experienced open source software trading companies to consult about solutions to change from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.

The biggest problems for the replacement, according to Mr. Loi, are changing the habits of users and how to make the replacement not influence their daily works.

(Source: ICTNews)