The 2021 economic census showed that there are 600,000 businesses in Vietnam. The 2021 report on Vietnam’s e-commerce index said that 43 percent of businesses have workers who use email regularly.

The figure would be much higher if integrated communication tools such as chat, video conferencing, sharing, and document compilation were included. 

However, most of the e-mail service market in Vietnam is in foreign hands. While other digital products and services, such as chatting, e-hailing, browser and anti-virus software all have more or less Vietnamese hallmark, the Vietnamese contribution to the email service market remains nil.

A Vietnamese company wants to change the situation by launching a Make in Vietnam e-mail service. Though a foreign open source code, this is a Vietnamized and customized product, expected to help ‘lay the first bricks’ for the development of Vietnamese e-mail services.

The launch of the product is a response to the policy on accelerating the use of open source software initiated by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).

VietNamNet talked with Truong Anh Tuan, CEO of iWay, about the development of the Vietnamese e-mail market and about what Vietnamese can do in the market.

Could you please tell us about the scale, market share and  development level of the e-mail solution market in Vietnam?

Fifty years have elapsed since the day that email service was launched. At first, email just had one function of receiving and sending mails. Today, email service systems have been developed into integrated communication solution with many important features such as scheduling, document sharing, chatting and video conferencing.

Regarding integrated e-mail service, enterprises in Vietnam have two options, either registering to use service on cloud, or use the service privately.

The leading cloud service provider in the market at this time is Google with a policy on offering free services. However, the policy has been tightened recently.

The official announcement from Google says that from August 1, 2022, it will stop providing G Suite Legacy Free service for free. This is a toolkit including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet and Calendars under private domain names.

The cost of $6-18 a month for maintaining a Google account is not suited to many Vietnamese businesses. So this is an opportunity for Vietnamese service providers.

Are there any differences in habits and demand for email use between Vietnam and other countries?

The last two years of the pandemic have caused big changes to people’s working habits. 

Users have shifted from direct communication to online working. Therefore, businesses and organizations need integrated email solutions with many functions such as scheduling, compilation and sharing of documents, video conferencing, etc…

Regarding differences in demand, many Vietnamese want to use services with servers located in Vietnam (because of security problems and fiber optic cable breaking). They also want to receive support and service from Vietnamese, who understand the Vietnamese language, if the service can provide necessary features at reasonable costs.

iWay has recently launched Email+, a completely new email solution in the market. Could you please give information about the product?

Email+ is an integrated email and communication solution with a server located in Vietnam, operated and supported 24 hours a day and seven days a week by Vietnamese experts. What we want is to build an email solution that bears a Vietnamese brand and is operated by Vietnamese.

This is an integrated e-mail and communication solution with features similar to other popular email solutions like Google and Microsoft, but at half the cost. It is a perfect solution to replace Google Suite.

What does Email+ have to do to compete with Google and Microsoft?

I believe that Email+, for several reasons, can compete equally with Google and Microsoft.

Email+ is a comprehensive email solution with features similar to Google’s such as Drive/Docs, Calendar, Chat, Video Call andTeam Meeting.

The email solution is optimized in UI/UX, which allows users to Haverhill  best experience with servers located in Vietnam operated by Vietnamese experts.

Email+ inherits an open source email platform which has been developed for nearly 20 years. This is an email platform with a high security level, used all over the world with 500 million users.

The platform has been developed not only by iWay but Zextras as well. It ranks second in the world and first in Europe in developing and providing services to open source email systems.

Trong Dat