Decade of
1990s witnesses competencies developed through
Government supported projects in the field of
Indian language technology - encoding standards,
text editors, user interfaces, desktop publishing
etc. GIST technology set the pace in multilingual
computing for Indian languages. This technology
was licensed to a number of entrepreneurs. A
number of start-up companies came into existence
to develop customized software for information
processing in regional languages. There are
around 1.5 million Gist-technology users. Few
companies maintained their monopoly by resorting
to their own proprietary font codes. Over all
pricing of Indian language technology products
was high and could find shelf market in Government
offices. IT penetration in local languages remained
restricted. Currently language market share
by the (public sector undertaking) C-DAC is
48% and the rest is from the private sector.
Enormous market yet remains untapped. New business
models need to be worked out.
Dovetailing
local-language processing capabilities into
major government initiatives in e-governance,
e-rural prosperity, e-learning, etc. may be
necessary. Public-Private partnership model
needs to be promoted in language technology
development and deployment in collaborative
mode.
Frost &
Sullivan, in a COILTech survey, predict demand
of $64 Million (Eq Rs. 2800 Mn appx.) during
2005 for Indian language technology products
& services. This may further increase if
we add export market as well as newer innovative
application domains.
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