Weeks ago, the Ministry of Information and Communication recommended a list of open software solutions for use in State agencies and the education sector, comprising Open Office, Thunderbird, Firefox and Unikey.

In the same gesture, the Office of the Vietnam Communist Party has announced it has replaced Microsoft Office by Open Office, and by the end of 2008, all 20,000 desktops at Party organs throughout Vietnam will be installed with Open Office.

Other state agencies like the Department of Post and Telematics of Khanh Hoa Province, and three departments of Trade, Science and Technology, and Post and Telematics in HCMC are using Open Office on a trial basis. After this stage, HCMC agencies will expand the trial use of this open source software to three more departments and five districts in the first half of this year.

An official of the HCMC Department of Post and Telematics says that the trial time shows that Open Office meets the requirements of the department.

Read the complete announcement.