Yahoo! developing web searching tools in Vietnamese

Hanoi Times - That is the method that Yahoo resorts to in order to become the initial choice of Vietnamese Internet users. In particular, Yahoo will focus o­n 5 main products: web-searching tools, master pages, communications (mail and Yahoo messenger), community (blog) and services for mobile phones.

For products like master pages, communications and community, Yahoo has already provided Vietnamese versions for local users. For mobile phone services, Yahoo has singed an agreement with MobiFone o­n providing o­ne Search, a web searching tool, for all subscribers of this mobile phone network. In the time ahead, Yahoo will introduce Vietnamese versions for web searching tools like the o­ne Google has already introduced to Vietnamese users.

According to Mr. Luong Vinh Tuoc, senior vice president of Yahoo! who is in charge of developing web searching tools, with a population of more than 85 million and 13% of this number using the Internet, Vietnam is a promising market for Yahoo!.

Tuoc also said that in his business trip to Vietnam this time, Yahoo! expects to collaborate with Vietnam’s managerial agencies like the Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and other enterprises to advance the use of web searching tools in Vietnamese. Parallel to studying the Vietnamese language so as to create Yahoo!’s searching tools in Vietnamese, Yahoo! will also help these Vietnamese counterparts develop their own web searching tools based o­n its technology and database background.

Apart from developing Vietnamese web searching tools in accordance with the common development trend of Yahoo!, in the world market, Yahoo will make some modifications o­n languages, interfaces and optimize them in accordance with Vietnamese users’ needs. SearchMonkey and BOSS are 2 services Yahoo! has put into its “open policy” and is going to focus o­n in helping Vietnamese counterparts.

With BOSS, Vietnamese enterprises can use Yahoo’s searching technology o­n their websites. According to Tuoc, in his meeting with more than 200 businesses at Quang Trung software center in Ho Chi Minh City, he could see their great interest in this service.

According to Mr. Vu Minh Tri, general director of Yahoo! in Southeast Asia, BOSS is still at its experimental stage; therefore enterprises do not have to pay any fee. However, when the official version is put into use, Yahoo! will collaborate with them o­n the basis of mutual benefit and other conditions.