Localization in India

Localisation can be defined as “the process of developing, tailoring and/or enhancing the capability of hardware and software to input, process and output information in the language, norms and metaphors used by a community” (Source: Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-08).

It is evident that China, Japan and Korea are the most matured markets in terms of localisation. These countries have been very active in their efforts towards standardized localisation. The result of this is that most of the software is already localized in these languages and now these countries are moving towards localizing cutting edge technology applications such as OCR and Text to Speech.

Technologies available to enable writing in Indian languages:

There are three technologies that enable typing in Indian languages. These are as follows.

Remington: It is suitable for those who have learnt typing on Indian language typewriter.

Inscript: The inscript keyboard that enables typing in Indic language from the standard keyboard is being provided by Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems. It also includes Virtual keyboards being provided by Indic content websites.

Phonetic: It works on the transliteration from the Indic text written in English into Indic text written in the same Indic language. This technology is preferred by the Bloggers and the segment of professional writers that publish stories or poems online.

Brahmi: A recent innovation has been the offering of Brahmi-based keyboard. In this type of keyboard, vowels and consonants are arranged based on the organization of Hindi characters.

Hardware: Type of Indian Language Keyboards

Bilingual Keyboard are available in different languages, in addition to English. The bilingual keyboards find their usage in government departments for exchanging bills from rural sections, maintaining a copy of official communication in Hindi and or local languages and interoffice work at lower level. PSUs also use bilingual keyboards as they require Indian language for written communication, report generation, etc. Households find usage of these keyboards limited to children’s project work and interactions (written) with government departments. Another localized offering on the keyboard market is a Gesture-Based Keyboard (GKB). It uses a pen-based technology that allows the Indian script to be recorded and stored directly on the computer.

Rediff has shown considerable interest in this sector, thereby acquiring companies such as Tachyon and Eterno; both these companies provide transliteration products for web as well as mobile.