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HANOI: Vietnam’s Communist Party plans to switch its 20,000
desktop computers nationwide to open-source software next year,
avoiding problems with copyright infringement, state media said
Friday.
Microsoft has stepped up efforts to reduce
software piracy in Vietnam, where an industry group has estimated
more than 90 percent of all software is counterfeit, sold widely on
bootleg CDs for about $2 each.
To avoid breaching the law or paying hundreds of
dollars per licensed program, the ruling Communist Party has
announced it will replace Microsoft Office with OpenOffice, a free
software product, VietnamNet reported.
“Accordingly, by the end of 2008, all 20,000
desktops at Party organs throughout Vietnam will be installed with
OpenOffice,” the news site reported.
“The project will start early next year . . .
beginning at the central level,” a party technology official told
AFP, asking not to be named.
Other state agencies, such as Ho Chi Minh
City’s departments of trade, post and telecommunications, and
science and technology were already using OpenOffice on a trial
basis, the report said.
Trade group the Business Software Alliance has
said over 90 percent of software sold in Vietnam is fake, among the
highest rates in the world.
Vietnam, a fast-growing emerging market economy,
joined the World Trade Organization in January, increasing pressure
on the country of 84 million people to adhere to global standards on
intellectual copyright protection.
--AFP
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