Hindi PC DOS announced

Wed Sep 24 10:40:25 UTC 1997

The following forwarded message may be of interest:

Hindi PC DOS announced
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From: Rob Russell <rrussell at ibm.net>

New Delhi, September 15, 1997

 To commemorate the Official Language Day, TATA IBM today announced the
availability of the Hindi PC DOS in India.  PC DOS  is the  first and only
operating system in Hindi. This landmark effort by IBM is in response to
the commitment of the Government of India to promote the Hindi language.

In a country where only 5% of the population speaks English, language is
the biggest barrier to computer literacy. The Tata IBM initiative will
enable the Hindi speaking population of 360 million to have access to
computers in their language. This will create a critical mass of computer
literate people who will contribute to the growth of India's software
developer population.

The computer programming profession, today a career choice only of an
English speaking minority is now available to the immense Hindi speaking
population. IBM's Education Services in India and IIS Infotech today
announced that they would provide programming training in Hindi as a new
course through their various training centers across the country.
Mr. Ravi Marwaha, Managing Director & CEO, TATA IBM says, "IBM is committed
to India's information technology development where local language
computing is the key issue. We are working closely with third party
developers for comprehensive application software development and with
hardware vendors for bundling the Hindi PC DOS with new and existing
machines.  We want to see the benefits of computerization trickle down to
the masses."

Mr. Pawan Kumar, President , IBM Global Services India says, "Today, the
penetration of computers in India is just one per 1000 population. There is
a definite need to increase this ratio. The availability of Hindi PC DOS
will increase the usage of computers, both in the office and at home. This
will contribute significantly towards meeting the Government's objective of
increasing the penetration ten times."

According to Mr. Mike Colleary, Director, IBM Emerging Markets (Software),
Asia Pacific, "India is a major strategic market and one of IBM Software's
fastest growing opportunities. The Hindi PC DOS launch shows IBM's
committment growing opportunity. The Hindi PC DOS launch shows IBM's
commitment to this to this important emerging country. This tremendous area
of opportunity is fueled by the second largest software developer
population in the world."

IBM has made a conscious decision to port Hindi PC DOS on hardware starting
from a PC 386.  By doing so, Hindi PC DOS reduces the cost of computing
considerably and allows our customers to use their existing machines. This
will also ensure the availability of a computer at a low cost to our Hindi
literate population. This gives the Hindi PC DOS enabled machines immense
marketing potential and usefulness in the country. Work on application
software by individual developers is going on at full steam with IBM's
support and encouragement. Office productive packages, database management,
spreadsheets and customised user packages will be the first to be
developed. It supports all internal and external commands, data and
messages in Hindi.

September 14th is India's " Official Language Day."  It was initiated by
Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first  President of India in 1950, as a commitment
of the Government of India to promote Hindi as the Official Language. The
Official Language Act of 1949, which makes the use of Hindi in Central
Government Offices mandatory all across the country also resulted from this
commitment.

Cheers

Rob.

--
Robert Russell
IBM Global Services Internet and Managed Networks
rrussell at ibm.net, rob at apic.net