India may be the Silicon Valley of the outsourcing world, but the country?s IT penetration is an abysmal 2.5%. Language computing is seen as a key handicap in digital inclusion in India where just over 10% people speak English, while close to 40% speak Hindi.

Overcoming the barrier to language computing might be a daunting task, but it is achievable. For, hope is around the corner with several IT giants, including Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, along with the state-owned Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) working overtime to overcome this handicap.

For one, Microsoft has remained steadfast in its focus in this space for the last ten years. Recently, the company announced several initiatives in this field. It unveiled the beta version of its operating system, Windows 7 in Hindi. It also showcased Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in 12 Indian languages?Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati,

Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu?for MS Office & Windows. A total of 45 additional soft (virtual) keyboards, which are free to download, are also available in these 12 languages.

In addition, Windows Live, which includes email, Instant Messenger, online storage, photo gallery, social networking, calendar, online storage, personal home page, and more, has also been made available in seven Indian languages. The languages are Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.

Then, in Microsoft?s yet another significant initiative to reach out to Indian 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 time that Microsoft has released a tool specifically to help students and beginner developers in India use the product in their own language.

These are just some of the initiatives that Microsoft has taken to bridge India?s digital divide. ?We are working towards localising more applications in the future. More investment will be put into this space,? says Meghashyam Karanam, product manager, visio and localisation, Microsoft India.

Similarly, IBM too is active in this space and has developed a host of offerings in Indian languages. These include Shrutlekhan-Rajbhasha, a speech recognition technology in Hindi with C-DAC. It also has a Hindi version of its messaging software Lotus Notes. Another software giant Oracle has launched Database 10g which supports transactions and interfaces in 13 major Indian languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil.

However, C-DAC continues to be the front runner in this space with a number of products across various levels of the chain. To increase the IT penetration, C-DAC is making available software tools and fonts in Indian languages for free through CDs and Web downloads. It is also adding four more languages?Mythali, Bodo, Dogri and Nepali to its portfolio.

Notwithstanding these bold initiatives, there is a widespread feeling that the spread of language computing, along with its widespread reach is still plagued by the lack of a comprehensive action plan. In this backdrop, it is the $4 billion National e-governance Plan (NeGP) of the government which is being hailed as a tide-turner by the industry.

For the uninitiated, the NeGP envisages to set up one lakh common service centres (CSC) across six lakh villages of the country. These CSCs will be the delivery point of various governments to citizen services related to land records, taxes, education and transport. Private players have also sensed a huge potential in CSCs and are lining up a host of services like banking, insurance, telecom and e-learning to be made available through these centres.

By 2016, India will have a population of 500 million with less than five years of schooling, and another 300 million not passing out of high school, according to UN Singh, director, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ?A knowledge society will be impossible unless we find innovative means of reaching out to these people. Localising mass-based and mass-use software could be a positive step forward that will have a far-reaching effect and impact,? he informs.

?If the government has to service the common man, especially living in India?s villages, it has to speak to them in their own language,? says Vinnie Mehta, executive-director of the IT industry body MAIT. According to C-DAC, the market for language computing is expected to reach Rs 470 crore by 2012.The current size of the market is about Rs 400 crore.

?There are many new platforms for language software like the Web, mobile, search engines etc. Also, opening up of e-governance will give a major boost to the usage of language software in banking and other enterprises,? says S Ramakrishnan, director general, C-DAC. While the market is flooded with language software for the end consumer, on the enterprise front, the government and the bureaucratic machinery, the public sector banks and educational institutions are some of its takers.

According to Karanam of Microsoft India, government and the public sector is the prime user of localised enterprise applications. For instance, public sector banks are required to make reports in both English and Hindi for which they use translation software. Similarly, in the Parliament, records are kept in both the languages. A machine assisted translation software application developed by C-DAC?Mantra Rajbasha is currently being used in the Rajya Sabha for translating papers to be laid, list of business etc.

Though the usage of localised software is minimal in the private sector, but this is also set to change. ?The adoption level is picking up as the need is arising from banking, insurance and telecom verticals, which are now tapping the rural markets,? says Nandavarapu Kiran, assistant manager, software and services, IDC India.

While India is the fastest growing telecom market in the world, it continues to be heavily under-penetrated, especially in the rural areas. Similar is the case with banking & insurance services. ?If companies provide these services in the local languages, then they have addressed the initial inhibition towards their adoptability,? says Navin Agrawal, executive director, KPMG.

Language software will be required by companies to prepare the user interface and their regular communiqu? with their customers in their local languages, summarises Karanam.

Breaking language barriers

• The language-computing market is expected to take off when e-governance initiatives are rolled out

• Enterprise-software majors are ready with Indian-language versions of their popular software systems

• Government and public sector undertakings are the largest users of language computing today

• Telcos, organised retailers and banks are expected to join in as their services spread to the hinterland