For someone my age the news that IBM is building a Banking Center of Excellence in Hanoi is like a splash of cold water in the face. The largest, most powerful capitalist nation in the world fought a war to stop the threat of Communism and now IBM and Hanoi, a company and a capitol city respectively that are emblematic of both, are as close as two peas in a pod. Life is strange. A center of excellence, according For someone my age the news that IBM is building a Banking Center of Excellence in Hanoi is like a splash of cold water in the face. The largest, most powerful capitalist nation in the world fought a war to stop the threat of Communism and now IBM and Hanoi, a company and a capitol city respectively that are emblematic of both, are as close as two peas in a pod. Life is strange. A center of excellence, according to Boxley Llewellyn, director of growth initiatives for banking and financial markets at IBM, is a team IBM creates from its hardware, software and services experts in a particular discipline, in this case finance.You can imagine because Vietnam was in one war or another for over 20 years its high tech infrastructure is up until recently almost non-existent. The good news for Vietnam is that because they have to start from scratch they can easily start with the latest technology. IBM will build its Banking Center of Excellence on top of IBM mainframe System z, DB2, WebSphere, Tivoli and an SOA platform.Some economists have said that the post-war rise of Germany and Japan as economic powerhouses was in fact due to a similar set of circumstances. Having their infrastructure bombed to rubble forced these two countries to rebuild. So while the winners were stuck with legacy manufacturing systems and factories Germany and Japan started with a far more modern base. The result is that both countries are strong competitors.While Vietnam is minuscule in terms of population and size compared to say China, Boxley believes that with a modern high tech infrastructure, Vietnam can become a world class competitor if they pick their target markets right.“They have the opportunity to specialize. To build in a certain corporate area,” Boxley told me. Look for them to focus on the consumer need for efficient banking which they will develop for their own growing middle class and then, taking advantage of the deployment of the newest technology, market that expertise into other locations beyond their own borders, says Boxley. What is wonderful about technology is that it knows no boundaries and it usually succeeds on its own merits, that’s something that can’t be said for countries in general or politicians in particular who usually get us into the messes that take us so long to recover from. Technology Industry