Walking in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is tough. Mopeds, motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses – going every way they want. Here is a clear example of how to cross the street on one of their main intersections.

The big news this fall is that Plus Factory has now opened their 2nd overseas office in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). PF VN, as we are calling the new office, will compliment PF China as an additional ‘backend’ production office for our North American based Clientele.

Vietnam is a booming country, and HCMC is one of its major cities. The city center is situated on the banks of the Saigon River. The metropolitan area is populated by more than 9 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in Vietnam. And with its growth, Vietnam has produced a great wealth of talented digital individuals which PF VN plans to recruit, train and bring online.

We have chosen our first office location close to Lam Son Square (District 1), which is in the center of Ho Chi Minh City, and is within walking distance of the main tourist attractions, restaurants and parks.

Plan to look ahead to more news about PF VN and other big news coming from Plus Factory.

New Skyline of HCMC

Our office by Lam Son Square

Our Receptionist

Stan - Office Manager

Stan's Office - But thats not Stan

Open area of the office

Conference Room

So the Munny Exhibit on 5/15/2010 was a smashing success! Many people came, and the Kid Robot Mummy dolls were a huge hit with the audience and the charity auction. The Plus Factory team were able to go in person and check out the Kid Robot’s. Also while we were at play, we still were working (as is the Plus Factory motto), and the Munny Exhibit site was going into post-event launch, with new sections opening up on the website.

Come to the website, http://www.munnyexhibit.com, to check out each industrial designed Munny doll from the exhibit, plus photo feeds from the event, video feeds (including the infamous BlimpCam), and see the live tweets that came in about the Munny Exhibit. Lots of fun stuff to check out.

So one of our Chinese clients is Charm Communications (http://www.charmbj.com), which last week went on the NASDAQ. Of course soon after that, the markets crashed due to some computer glitch – it wasn’t Charm’s fault!

So during the day of festivalities, Charm had their brand up on the big OOH digital signature in Times Sq, all thanks to the Factory who did the digital work.

We also built the homepage of CharmBJ, check here to check it out.

We are still moving in, setting things up and getting our infrastructure all in place. But for you curious ‘Georges’ out there, here are some pix of our new office space. Only we can get some of that China office furniture here at the NYC office – sigh.

So getting to the end of a great year of business, Plus Factory wanted to kick it off with our Holiday Dinner at Hill Country Barbecue in New York City. Nothing like having dinner with your loverly co-worker, some drinks, tons of BBQ’ed meat and great side dishes. We got there early and were there late. Eating, drinking, talking and spending some good quality time together. Here are the picks. The China office had their own holiday dinner the same night in China…which hopefully they will share with us soon.

No Veggies allowed here.

This is where it happened, but at night and with lots of rain.

This says it all

Bomee, Mehmet and Warren

Tom and his lady, Nikki.

Jonny and his lady, Katie. Voted 'coolest' Plus Factory Peeps.

Caleb enjoying life, meat and whiskey. Life is good.

Ali enjoying NY style BBQ.

Just in case you need help understanding what we were doing.

Tom focusing on the menu.

This captures the mood of the night.