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Microsoft India

Microsoft India Empowers Your Computer to Interact in your Language

Showcases host of localization solutions to enhance IT accessibility

New Delhi, March 11, 2010: With over 33 major languages and 1652 dialects, India is a nation of diverse cultures and languages. About 95 percent of the nation’s population prefers working in their regional language – while just about five percent conducts its business in English. It is obvious that the disparity in language usage contributes to the digital divide. Since 1998, when Microsoft India identified localization as a key catalyst for effecting ushering in an IT revolution, the company has been working on overcoming the language barrier to computing since.

Today, Microsoft India showcased a host of custom made solutions for the Indian market under its ongoing effort of making technology accessible by localizing its flagship products. The solutions and tools include:

o The Indic Language Input tool is a set of tools that help users enter Indian language text into computers easily and quickly. For example, one can type, For example, one can type “bhaarat mein anek bhaashaein bolee jati hain” for obtaining 2

The Indic Language Input tool is available in two versions; the desktop version enables the user to enter Indian language text directly into any application running on Windows, such as Microsoft Word or Outlook. The web version allows the user to enter text on any web page – such as Live mail or Windows Live Messenger – without requiring software download. The Language Input tool’s visual keyboard enables users to visually select and directly enter Indian language characters. The beta version of the project is available for free download and currently supports ten languages – Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Oriya and Punjabi.

o Windows 7 Hindi language interface pack (LiP) which allows users to experience the latest operating system and its features; Windows Taskbar (Go-to spot for launching programs and switching windows), Aero Shake (Click a window pane and shake your mouse to minimize all other open windows), Peek, Snap (Drag an open window to your screen’s border to automatically re-size it. Snap two different windows to the left and right borders for a perfect comparison), Jump Lists, Multitouch (Interact with your PC with a touch-screen monitor, using your fingers and multi-touch gestures, and Remote Media Streaming (Enables highly secure, remote Internet access to home-based digital media libraries from another Windows 7-based PC outside the home) in Hindi.

o MSN Yuva – One stop online Hindi channel for the globally connected youth of India. It offers a window into every aspect that interests Gen X, from sports, to entertainment, to career counseling, to the latest news. It offers features like Dosti – a social networking site in Hindi, Dil Se – An online confession box help that helps finding solutions to one’s most intimate/personal problems with the choice of keeping or revealing one’s identity and Fun Tadka – The fun quotient which provides Bollywood’s latest gossip, film reviews, tips on love & romance etc.

o Internet Explorer 8 in 18 additional languages on Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 Language Packs which will allow users to access like InPrivate Browsing, Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.

o Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in 12 Indian languages – Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu – for MS Office and Windows. A total of 45 additional soft (virtual) keyboards, which are free to download, are also available in these 12 languages.

o Windows Live, which includes e-mail, Instant Messenger, online storage, photo gallery, social networking, calendar, online storage, personal home page, and more, in seven Indian languages. The languages are Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.

o In Microsoft’s most significant initiative to reach out to Indic developers, the Captions Language Interface Pack (or CLIP) has been launched for Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya, and Tamil. CLIP is a tool that uses a tooltip caption to display translations for user interface items in Visual Studio 2008. This is the first tool specifically designed to help students and beginner developers in India use the product in their own language.

o IL-POST (an annotation framework for Indian languages), wikiBABEL (a community-oriented multilingual content creation portal) and MINT (an algorithm for mining multilingual news corpora) developed by Microsoft Research India aimed at creating resources to enable computational linguistics research in Indian languages.

Microsoft has been working on language computing in India since 1998, since the first India visit of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. The idea was to usher in the IT revolution in the country in a phased manner – and localization was identified as the key catalyst for effecting this development. In 2003, Microsoft India launched Project Bhasha, a cohesive effort to bring together governments, the academia and research institutions, the local ISVs and developers and the industry associations on a common ground for promoting local language usage in IT. The www.bhashaindia.com portal is India’s leading community for Indian language computing.

For more information on Project Bhasha, please log on to: www.bhashaindia.com

For more information on Microsoft India, please log onto: www.microsoft.com/india

Popularity: 9% [?]

Microsoft India

Microsoft India invites you to get an exclusive experience of Indian Language Computing

With majority of Indians still opting to work in regional languages, localization of technology has emerged among the key catalysts to enhance IT usage.

Join us for an informative session showcasing the entire range of Microsoft India’s localized offerings that are redefining computing in India today. The session will provide you a hands-on-experience of products like Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, the Indic language Input tool, MSN, Windows Live, MS Office in local languages.

Present at the occasion would be Mr. Sanjay Manchanda, Director – Business Division, Microsoft India and Meghashyam Karanam, Product Manager – Localization & Notes Compete, Microsoft India

Date: Thursday, March 11, 2010

Venue: Conference Room 3, India International Center, 40, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi

Time: 11.30 am

Popularity: 5% [?]

Microsoft ups the ante against pirates

With its operating system Windows 7 and other popular software products being increasingly targeted by cyber pirates, Microsoft has launched an initiative to curb the menace, primarily because customers are asking it to intervene.

“We are seeing an upsurge in consumers coming back to us and saying I have been a victim of piracy. So long as data pointing to the source of piracy is there, we will take some measure,” said Vipul Pant, director of Microsoft’s “genuine software initiative”.

“Since January, we have received over 2,000 complaints in India, and more than 150,000 from consumers across the world,” Pant told news agency.

According to a study by Business Software Alliance, a US-based non-profit trade association of software firms in over 80 countries, and market tracker IDC, piracy levels in India were pegged at 68 percent in 2008, while losses stood at $2.7 billion.

A 10-point reduction in personal computer (PC) software piracy would create an additional 44,000 jobs in India, $200 million in tax revenues, and $3.1 billion in economic growth.

However, with internet connectivity increasing, consumers are beginning to realise the potential risks of running a PC which runs pirated software like an operating system.

“India has 30 million installed PCs, with one-third being used in homes, and are connected to the internet, at least for some time of the day or week or month. If you add small offices, more than 10 million PCs are connected to the Net,” said Pant.

“The internet, however, also brings in malware and is becoming a syndicated criminalised industry. They figured out that the easiest way to get into somebody’s PC is to place malware in the pirated copies,” he added.

Malware or malicious software is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s consent and can be used to steal the user’s financial or personal information.

“KPMG in a whitepaper figured out that 59 percent of crack tools and keygens they surveyed had embedded malware,” said Pant.

Microsoft said it has started a campaign to inform customers of the potential threats from buying pirated software in 70 countries.

The company has also initiated civil legal actions on errant re-sellers and involved the police in conducting surprise checks on known piracy vending locations like Lamington Road in Mumbai, Lalbagh in Lucknow and Krishna Nagar in New Delhi.

However, Prasanto Roy, chief editor of trade magazine CyberMedia, said Microsoft has not been very successful in its fight against piracy in the past compared to smaller software companies.

“Microsoft’s customer base is huge compared to others. Most systems have a Microsoft product — usually Windows. It will have to tread cautiously while taking action against the big sharks because some of them are likely to be members of their channels of distribution,” Roy told news agency.

“Any action needs to be gentle and persuasive as the ramifications can hit its business prospects,” said Roy.

Popularity: 4% [?]