Mastering technology in the media field, this Vietnamese enterprise provides security solutions with flexible protection capabilities, meeting international standards.

But is it easy to get such outstanding marks?

“Reclaiming” new lands

In 2008, after finishing his study program in Korea, young man Nguyen Ngoc Han decided to return to Vietnam to start a career.

With in-depth knowledge of engineering and telecommunications, Han joined a messaging service provider, but soon decided to set up her own "field" so she could actively pursue new ideas in her own way.

Thu Do Multimedia Joint Stock Company (abbreviated as Thu Do) was officially established in 2010, when "CEO" Nguyen Ngoc Han was in her thirties.

The Capital 5.jpg

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Han, General Director of Thu Do Multimedia Company.

With the mindset of "reclaiming" the online environment, the "general boss" of Thu Do and his associates decided to use the Vietnamese team to research and develop online applications and online games on mobile phones.

At that time, in Vietnam, not many businesses made their own games like Thu Do, but most chose to import games from abroad to do business.

Choosing a “separate path”, Thu Do pays great attention to security because it sees that if an online product is not mastered, all efforts can be “wasted”. Hacking games is quite common with computer game programs, and is even easier to do in the mobile environment. Each turn of a player is scored, if this score is interfered with, the system will be chaotic, affecting all parameters in the game.

Another plus point of Thu Do is the ability to protect data and restore data when there is an Internet connection loss while playing online games. Thu Do's products help users not feel frustrated because they have won but their achievement points are not counted just because of "internet disconnection".

“In 2010-2012, the market was quite easy, so Thu Do had sales right away. After finishing the game, we just had to push it to wap sites and many people would love to download it. The most successful products at that time were Co Thu or Billiard Online - with up to 40 million downloads worldwide,” Mr. Han happily recalled the first phase of his career which was quite favorable.

But since 2013, when smartphones became popular, domestic game publishers, including Thu Do, lost their domestic market advantage because global publishers could promote their products directly to users around the world.

Realizing the instability in the future of providing services on smartphones if following the old direction, Thu Do leaders sought a new direction with the criteria of maintaining the "color" of a Vietnamese company with many strengths in content protection, data protection, and gathering a team of Vietnamese engineers who can make products that meet global standards and sell to the global market.

In the chaos of opportunities and storms waiting to sweep away immature businesses in the market, Thu Do decided to "jump" into the research field to provide solutions for the media sector because it realized that media is a development trend of the world with a very large market scale and diverse customers, in which, protecting and managing digital content copyright is a must-have "anchor" product to survive.

Recalling the difficulties of the “land reclamation” pioneer, Mr. Han confided: “There are really many difficulties. First of all, there are no “allies”. Since 2010, I myself had to spend a lot of effort to convince network operators to provide prefixes for users to top up to read newspapers or play games, then form a separate prefix portal for top-up such as prefix 9029 to solve problems regarding the payment scenario and the division ratio commensurate with the value of the content provided to customers. Perhaps, at that time, Thu Do was the first enterprise to propose this new method to network operators”.

Another major difficulty, according to Mr. Han, is human resources. In the fields that the Capital "reclaimed", at the beginning, almost no one in the country could specifically visualize what needed to be done, so there was no available human resource to meet the job requirements. The Capital's leaders had to go to specialized schools for technology training such as Hanoi University of Science and Technology, the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology, etc., to propose that third-year students come to the company for internships with salaries higher than scholarships.

“At that time, we paid 2-3 million VND/month for each intern. For some students in difficult circumstances, that amount of money was not only enough to rent a house but also to support their first-year university students. The interns were trained by Thu Do engineers in thinking and programming methods updated in the world. Many students later became official employees of the company, ready to meet new job requirements in the context of the rapidly developing information technology industry, with a lot of practical knowledge that had never been mentioned in books. A very unique cultural feature of Thu Do, most of the “pillars” were once interns, always ready to “steadily steer” the company through failures and challenges, rising to the position of a leading enterprise,” Mr. Han recalled.

Proud of Vietnamese business

Thu Do is the first enterprise in Southeast Asia to have a digital content copyright protection solution (trade name Sigma DRM) that has been successfully tested, putting Vietnam in the list of 20 countries with DRM solutions globally.

Capital.jpg

Thu Do Multimedia is one of 12 companies in the world that invented DRM in the media field.

“In the world, there are currently only 12 businesses that have invented copyright solutions in the media field, with big names such as IBM, Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft... We are very proud that Thu Do Multimedia is on the same list with such big names,” said CEO Nguyen Ngoc Han.

However, the journey to achieve that proud thing is also full of hardships.

“Once the solution is completed, the next thing is to have it inspected and recognized by a reputable international organization. We sent an email to a reputable international inspection organization. But they did not reply to dozens of emails. We called to invite them over, even willing to pay all the required costs, but they still refused because they did not believe that Vietnamese businesses could do this field. Luckily, God was merciful. We found a famous and reputable Vietnamese person in the field of television and media globally. Thanks to the recommendation of that reputable person, the international inspection organization finally agreed to come to Vietnam to work.

The next challenge is the very strict inspection process. The immutable principle in security inspection is: If the working environment, personnel, and machinery are not guaranteed, it is difficult to produce a product that is safe enough. Therefore, they not only inspect the software but also require all facilities and processes for people entering and leaving Thu Do to comply with ISO27000. Thu Do was "breathed a new wind" in terms of security in production. Finally, Sigma DRM was successfully inspected and announced to meet global security standards. Hopefully, I will be a case study for international organizations to change their thinking and views on Vietnamese businesses," Mr. Han recounted his past experience.

“If we talk about a business that provides comprehensive OTT media solutions including DRM, Thu Do is currently the only business in the world market. Because as we know, there are only 20 businesses worldwide that have invented DRM, and those “big guys” only specialize in developing a specific business area. In Thu Do Multimedia’s comprehensive solution, some software may not be excellent but it is enough to meet basic needs. We have prepared a menu for a buffet party, customers can choose all the dishes or some dishes according to their preferences, without having to choose and combine solutions from many suppliers to use,” Thu Do CEO confidently affirmed.

Recently, an incident related to Google's Widevine DRM protection solution - hackers leaked the entire source code to the Internet, causing content on 4 billion devices in the Android ecosystem and about 2.6 billion devices using the Chrome browser using Widevine to be unable to protect copyright. Thu Do Multimedia once again proved its ability to major partners in Vietnam when only Sigma DRM was able to resist the attack because of its superior security capabilities compared to foreign DRM providers when it had built a third layer of protection while businesses only built two layers of protection for the DRM solution.

According to Cartesian's assessment, Thu Do's Sigma Active Observer- SAO proactive security layer is the first DRM solution with such a third layer.

Mastering technology, creating a competitive advantage over "foreign goods"

Since its establishment, Thu Do's leaders have determined that the company must master technology and operate according to international standards in both products and people.

In 2016, Thu Do combined with VTVCab to launch an OTT television platform called VTVcab ON, the first platform entirely researched and built by Vietnamese people, not only pioneering 4K broadcasting on the Internet but also the only system to date where all content channels from free to paid are protected by DRM. When managing the content, the "station" will be flexible in licensing the time when the content can be viewed for free, what time to charge, and not having to pay bandwidth for content that is "stolen" by bad guys.

The Capital 3.jpg

"Boss" Nguyen Ngoc Han is very proud of the engineering team of Thu Do Multimedia.

Proud of his team of truly intelligent and skillful engineers, Mr. Han boasted that the solutions under the Sigma brand of Thu Do are even more advantageous than “foreign goods”. The proof is that Sigma Transcoder has a processing time 2.5 seconds faster than the transcoding machines of the world’s “biggest” competitors, while with television, a delay of just 1 second is a big problem.

In particular, according to Mr. Han, any server in the hands of Thu Do engineers, when installing Sigma software, becomes an ESG device (sustainable development) because it is processed according to each micro service. For example, Sigma Transcoder, with foreign suppliers, a normal server only allows processing 8 input channel streams, but Thu Do can process about 3 times more because it processes HD streams on GPU, while lower streams use CPU.

“The equipment we buy is about 30% cheaper than foreign suppliers, and the performance can still be increased by 60%. The problem is not simply reducing the price, but the main thing is that we can master the equipment, optimize the strengths in a device to solve problems, and can be measured. Foreign partners when Thu Do Multimedia comes to offer their products are very satisfied with this because it will help them have a basis to aim for ESG - a trend that the whole world is interested in,” Mr. Han further analyzed.

Assessing the digital content copyright protection solution of Thu Do at a recent workshop, Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, representative of FPT Play, commented: “This is a new, outstanding technology that can be specifically applied to Vietnam as well as other countries in the region. The application of this technology is a bit different from what others have done.”

Having been involved in the field of copyright and security for many years, the “captain” of Thu Do still has many concerns and worries about the current situation of the country: “The deeper the integration in the technology field, the more the issue of data safety and security must be put first. In our opinion, the next stage of digital transformation is media transformation in all industries, from healthcare, education, etc. All data of these industries needs to be protected according to international standards. However, security camera data in families, businesses and public places in Vietnam is currently only stored unsecurely, leading to many cases of data leakage from cameras. I am very worried and really want to send a warning, calling for the attention of ministries, departments and branches on this issue. With the ability to master international standard technology, Thu Do is ready to accompany in minimizing security risks”.

Start reaching out to the world market

“We always believe that Vietnamese people are capable of making products and software that are not inferior to those in the world. We are confident that Vietnamese people can do it. Reality has proven it over the past years,” CEO Nguyen Ngoc Han emphasized.

Up to now, Thu Do’s DRM solution has conquered most of the units and businesses in the television sector in Vietnam. Many large businesses after using Thu Do’s solution have “said goodbye” to the solution of foreign partners.

Moreover, the list of Vietnamese enterprises' customers is gradually supplemented with many prestigious international brands, typically the largest television station in Southeast Asia.

From the beginning of 2023, Thu Do will begin to implement specific steps to enter the international market.

According to the plan, Vietnamese enterprises will first establish a presence in the US market, then Southeast Asia.

“The US is a demanding market but is currently the largest market in the world. If we can meet the needs of US businesses in the media sector, we will go global. Recently, we have become an alliance member with an American business. Through this, it will be easier to access the US market. It is very likely that we will be the first Vietnamese business to provide media solutions to American customers. Our expectation is that by 2024, there will be global businesses abroad using Thu Do Multimedia's solutions, and then there will be more large customers in many other countries,” Mr. Han predicted.

Understanding that the journey to reach the world market will have many challenges, especially fierce competition from foreign rivals with rich potential in technology as well as skills and business experience, Thu Do is looking for many ways to increase capacity.

The Capital 6.jpg

The General Director of Thu Do Multimedia recently participated in the program to hand over the cooperation agreement with the IPSC Project in early October 2023 in Hanoi.

In early October 2023, Thu Do was one of the first 6 enterprises to receive a Premium Support Package from the Vietnam Private Sector Competitiveness Enhancement Project (IPSC) implemented by the Ministry of Planning and Investment with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to select pioneering enterprises with innovative and competitive Vietnamese products to bring to the international market. This support package will create more momentum for Vietnamese enterprises' journey to the big sea.

Appreciating the role of state management agencies in accompanying businesses to reach the world, CEO Nguyen Ngoc Han proposed that the Ministry of Information and Communications consider forming a department to periodically evaluate "Make in Vietnam" products and solutions that have been recognized and accepted by the international market, in order to provide better guidance and support for businesses to "accelerate" in the journey ahead.

Vietnamnet.vn

source