The Hindu : Now, a `totally indigenous office' suite

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003

National

National

Now, a `totally indigenous office' suite

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI AUG. 19. A Chennai-based IT enterprise has released "a totally indigenous office" suite, as a cheaper alternative to the existing international brands of software for uses such as web-browser, e-mail client, spreadsheet and word processor.

A major advantage of the new IT tool is that one can easily switch between English and Tamil or Hindi, say the makers of the `suite'. The tool `Shakthi' has robust applications for delivering the power of industry-standard computing, especially in Indian languages, says Manoj Annadurai, Director, Chennai Kavigal, an enterprise involved in language computing since 1996.

After two years of conceptualisation, testing, experimentation, validation and updation, `Shakthi' can do eight applications: a word-processor (`Padhami' in Tamil and Hindi); a spreadsheet (`Padakkam' in Tamil and `Khaatha' in Hindi); an e-mail client (`Minnal' in Tamil and `Khabhuthar' in Hindi); a database manager (`Kaeni' in Tamil and `Soochna Sangrah' in Hindi - similar to the MS Access); a web-browser (`Nadodi' in Tamil and `Vicharak' in Hindi); an HTML Editor (`Silanthi' in Tamil and `Julaha' in Hindi); a paint programme (`Thoorigai' in Tamil and `Chitera' in Hindi). The tool also supports industry standards in file formats such as rtf., doc., html., xls, mdb and many more.

With design inputs from the TeNet group, a venture by scientists and researchers of IIT-Madras, the product will meet international standards. "Here is one `Made in India' tool that can be used by the entire world," claims Mr. Manoj. Priced at Rs.2000, the suite comes at a price significantly lower than those of the MNC products.

At the application level for the user, the word processor in `Shakthi' can do a function much faster than the international brand products. Because of its application in Tamil and other Indian languages, Chennai Kavigal sees bright prospects for `Shakthi' not only among corporate clients, but even the Government. The Government has been buying only fonts and `drivers' as interface software, which too are expensive. "But we got over the fonts and drivers market and we wanted the Governments and Corporate India to provide an indigenous and cheaper alternative to the entire Office suite applications," Mr. Manoj says.

He faces the most frequently asked question: Is the product not a mere adaptation of the MS Office suite? "It looks the same because we have used the same international standard character user architecture as defined by the IBM. When something looks similar on the screen, it is easy to use."

T.A. Gonsalves of IIT-Madras, who was involved in design input, says the product definitely "looks and feels different once you start using it". It is not a reformation or reengineering of existing technologies. "We started the source codes from scratch. The code development input is available publicly. In functioning also, this is something different." He adds that now his group is working for applying `Shakthi' to the Linux system.

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