Computing in your own language is now a breeze

Ten years back, India's first language portal Webdunia launched an email solution called "epatra". The service allowed recipients to read emails without downloading or installing any fonts. Rebranded Webdunia email, the solution now offers users the flexibility to send and receive emails in 11 Indian languages.

The language ecosystem has improved dramatically. What started as a wave is becoming a tide with major players like Microsoft, Google and even Intel raising the language bar.

This March, for instance, Microsoft showcased its Indic Language Input tool which helps users enter Indian language text into computers with ease. Its visual keyboard enables users to visually select and directly insert Indian language characters. The beta version is available as a free download and currently supports 10 languages.

Microsoft's Windows 7 Hindi language interface pack (LiP), too, allows users to experience the latest operating system (OS) and its features in Hindi.

MSN Yuva - its one-stop online Hindi channel - caters to the youth, and offers features like Dosti - a social networking site in Hindi, Dil Se - an online confession box that helps with personal problems. Microsoft also has "Fun Tadka" - which provides Bollywood's latest gossip, film reviews, tips on love and romance. Moreover, Windows Live, too, is available in seven Indian languages.

Microsoft has been working on such projects since the first India visit of its Chairman Bill Gates in 1998. In 2003, it also launched "Project Bhasha" to bring together governments, researches and developers on a common platform to promote local language usage, points out Meghashyam Karanam, product manager, Microsoft India.

Google, on its part, has customised its products like Search, Gmail, Orkut, Blogger and News to make them available in Indian languages.

And it was only this January that the online search giant launched the Google Transliteration IME - a free desktop application which allows users to enter text in one of the supported languages using a roman keyboard.

Using IME, a small business owner can create marketing material or email consumers and suppliers in their local language, or a teacher could create educational material such as question papers in local languages.

This facility has been available on the web. Google Transliteration IME makes it available for the desktop across all applications, whether online or offline. The solution was conceived and developed in India at Google's Bangalore R&D Centre and is currently available in 14 different languages.

"This innovation furthers our corporate mission of making the world's information universally assessable and useful," says Vinay Goel, products head, Google India.

This March, Intel India, too, announced the launch of a local language interface christened "Darpan". It's an initiative by the world's largest chipmaker and its software partners to simplify PC usage especially for first-time buyers.

All relevant content and India-centric internet content is compiled to ensure minimal keyboard usage and make navigation easier by using local language menus and commands. The user interface is currently available in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil and will be extended to other languages going forward, according to R Sivakumar, managing director, sales and marketing group, Intel South Asia.

R K Aggarwal, director (Consumer Mobility) of BSNL (which has a go-to-market strategy with Intel) believes the initiative will help in "bridging the digital divide and extend the benefits of technology to millions of Indians".

Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner, however, remains sceptical. "We still use the Roman script in Hindi rather than Devanagiri," he says, noting that "English will remain the predominant texting language, and a dipstick survey has revealed that keyboards still display the English script."

He acknowledges, though, that companies like Microsoft and Google "are helping in expanding the language market". Nevertheless, India Inc has enough reasons to take up to language computing.

For one, Hindi is the second-largest spoken language of the world. Yet, it figures nowhere among the top 10 languages on the internet. Cyberspace is dominated by English (around 27 per cent users) and Chinese (around 22 per cent). Spanish follows third with just a little over 7 per cent share.

Moreover, around 95 per cent of the population prefers working in regional languages with just 5 per cent conducting business in English. And of the 70 million Indians active on the web, Google India estimates that only 13 per cent prefer to use the internet in English and the remaining 87 per cent prefer a local language.

President & Chief Operating Officer of Webdunia, Pankaj Jain, believes that "communication and languages are deeply bonded and no communication can be useful and oriented in absence of proper language". A good market response will only deepen the conviction.