Red Hat cashes in on the richness of Indian languages

Red Hat has geared up to capture the Indian market with localized products.
In the next 15 months, the company will introduce new versions in 13 more Indian
languages.

Javed Tapia, Country Director of Red Hat said, "Red Hat will offer
operating system, open office, e-mail client and web browser in 13 Indian
languages." He also informed that the languages that the company will cover
in the second phase include Telugu, Marathi, Kannada and Assamese. Red Hat plans
to expand the localization initiative by launching interface in five local
Indian languages commercially in February 2005. Apart from this, in the next 15
months, Red Hat will bring in 13 more local languages. Javed said "We are
running beta versions of five Indian language interfaces and they will be
launched in February

commercially."

He was attending a three-day International Summit on localization organized
by MAIT and Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India. The languages
that the company will cover in the first phase are Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali,
Tamil and Gujarati. He also added, A 12-member team of the company is working to
localize the operating system and three applications in close association with
the Red Hat team in Australia. "The number of software development partners
has touched 35 and training partners stand at 70. The company also has a tie-up
with computer makers like IBM, HCL, Acer, PCS and Wipro," Javed further
added.

FAIZ ASKARI