Our Bureau

New Delhi , Feb. 20

SOFTWARE giant Microsoft plans to release the localised version of its operating system Windows and Office suite in four more Indian languages, including Tamil and Bengali, by April.

The company has already launched the localised version of its products in Hindi and Kannada, and plans to make them available in 14 Indian languages by the end of this year. "In the next six weeks or so, we will make it available in Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi," Mr Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation India, said here.

These versions have already been developed, tested and showcased to the some State Government and customers at various forums, he added.

Besides the localised versions, Microsoft already provides support for Windows and Office in 12 Indian languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Gujarati.

"As part of this initiative, we provide the out-of-the-box functionality and support. Some of the existing functionalities include e-mail, chat, searching, creating databases and Web pages in any of the 12 Indian languages," Mr Raveesh Gupta, Program Manager - Localisation, Microsoft India, said.

Microsoft's localisation programme focuses on four areas - ensuring that each product works for various Indian languages; collaborating with the Central and State Governments; supporting, developing and enhancing local independent software vendor ecosystem; and working in a community to reach out to individuals, he said.

"As of today, we work with a dozen Indian local language partners, over a 100 linguists and have hundreds of large customers such as the Income-Tax Department, Punjab National Bank, GAIL (India), NTPC, NHPC, the RBI, besides Governments of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, and Punjab amongst others," he said, adding that some of the e-governance applications that were using localised Microsoft products included Bhoomi, National Manuscript project, Vidyanidhi project and Ardh Kumbh Mela project.

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