The promise of outsourcing to Vietnam

I know someone who does this. It works really well for him.

My friend Luke Crawford - no obvious relation - owns http://prgmr.com/ a Xen VM and colocation hosting service.

Most of his staff does tech support, but he also needs help setting up new VMs, dealing with stuff like live migration when he installs new boxen and takes old ones out of service.

One of his very best employees is a Vietnamese citizen. He worked for Luke in Silicon Valley for a while, then went back to Vietnam, where he works remotely.

A while back I stumbled across a picture of what Ho Chi Minh city looks like today.

My father was a US Naval Officer who did a tour of duty in Saigon, as well as served as a missile fire control officer aboard the USS Providence.

When I saw that recent picture of Ho Chi Minh City, I did not expect to see a whole bunch of gleaming skyscrapers.

The Vietnamese weren't really looking for Communism. What they were looking for, was independence. When they finally got that they became the very best friends with the West.

Forget about Flappy Bird, I have a few showcases to +1 this article

- http://re***d.com (which was posted here on HN when it launched as well) - http://joomlarts.com : The most popular Joomla sites - Android Tank app

And many other enterprise software which I don't think is appropriate to mention here were completed by an outsourcing company in Vietnam. I personally know the companies that implemented the software, from A to Z, that is now operated by US companies. It does work.

I keep on telling my friends who have never been to Vietnam that the fact that Vietnam is a one-party country does not absolutely affect the software business at all. And people in Vietnam love to work with foreigners, 99,99% of the population do not give a about the past Vietnam war. What is ahead is more important, and that is business opportunities. It's fact.

I really encourage small/medium sized software companies give Vietnam a shot, it's a good chance. I've personally seen it myself, trust me.

Edit: removed a website's name. I think probably the owner of the site doesn't want to be listed.