Vietnam Telco Selects IBM for Cloud-Based Mobile Computing Platform

IBM Corporation and Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services
company (VMS), one of the country’s telecom
company, announced a collaboration to build an advanced
mobile computing platform.

The agreement that includes IBM MobileFirst, IBM SmartCloud and IBM PureSystems
offerings will allow VMS to expand into new markets, while enhancing its
enterprise application development capabilities and improving workforce
productivity.

This collaboration with IBM, a part of VMS’ five-year IT strategy, will be led
by its subsidiary, Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services Center II (VMSII), which is
the top revenue contributor for VMS.

VMS’ multi-faceted IT strategy includes speeding up IT adoption via cloud computing
and leveraging mobile technology to support the company’s business growth
plans. The objective is to build a cloud ecosystem and value-added
mobile services by providing mobile platform as a service, infrastructure as a service and software as a service to VMS’ partners and enterprise customers.

"VMS is the first organization in
Vietnam to deploy an end-to-end mobile on cloud infrastructure based on IBM
technology, and VMSII is privileged to be selected to pioneer this solution,"
said Mr. Nguyen Bao Long , deputy director of VMSII. "This strategic investment will help us sustain our leading position in
telecommunication services in Vietnam. We will leverage the new mobile cloud
infrastructure to streamline management of employees’ personal devices, quickly
deliver value-added services and promotions to our customers and improve
customer satisfaction."

Founded 20 years ago, VMS is a major telecom service provider in Vietnam with
the brand MobiFone. Today, VMS provides mobile services to more than 40 million
subscribers, including 5.5 million 3G subscribers, or 43% of the country’s
total 3G subscriber population, making it the country’s largest 3G service
provider. VMSII, located in Ho Chi Minh City, oversees the company’s business
and operations in South Vietnam.

In recent years, the Vietnamese mobile landscape has matured from its heady
days of exponential growth to one that is fiercely competitive. This drove
service providers to examine their business models, explore ways to reduce
their operating expenses and seek new and better ways to differentiate
themselves by providing superior products and customer services.

The new mobile cloud infrastructure will help VMS improve the scalability of
its IT infrastructure and meet growing customer demand, while supporting
revenue growth and overseas expansion. Targeted at VMS MobiFone subscribers,
the company also intends to introduce new value-added services, including
advertising and promotional campaigns. By managing the
entire innovation process from conceptualization and software engineering to
market, VMS will be able to diversify its product offerings and expedite
product to market.

In addition to implementing hardware and backup infrastructure, IBM’s services
team will help VMS migrate its computing platform to the cloud, transforming
its business processes. As a result, VMS will be able to better connect with
its employees, especially front office employees, regardless of their preferred
mobile device. This will not only allow communication among employees within
the organization at anytime, anywhere but also encourage employee mobility and
increase workforce productivity. As part of these workforce productivity
initiatives, VMS will deploy new mobile applications to enable its field
personnel across Southern Vietnam.

"These aggressive efforts have
placed VMS in a much stronger position in the marketplace," said Jee
Toon Tan, GM, IBM Vietnam. "IBM is
committed to supporting business leaders such as VMS to leverage the latest
technologies, including mobile and cloud, as they strive to increase
operational efficiency and improve the company’s bottom line."

The new mobile platform is based on IBM WebSphere Application Server and IBM
Worklight software, as well as a cloud management system running on IBM
SmartCloud Provisioning. It includes IBM PureFlex System, part of the IBM
PureSystems family of integrated systems, as the core infrastructure. As
a key feature, the platform is integrated and optimized, thus simplifying
computing and allowing easier management. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage
systems are integrated to manage the
torrent of data so it can be delivered for workloads like
transaction processing. The IBM TS3200 Tape Library Express is or
handling backup and archiving with security and less power
requirements.