With the intention to defeat the language barrier to computing, technology giant Microsoft has presented different custom made products, which are specifically directed at the vernacular language market.

The vernacular language market is a market that has been largely left untapped up till now.

It is an important step taken by Microsoft as the language barrier is an additional challenge towards providing access to information to a big part of country’s (India) population. This helps them to participate in India’s growth curve.

The company launched Language Interface Packs (LIPs), which would bring support for 12 Indian languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu.

These customized language computing solutions are developed for the end user of their applications such as Windows OS and MS Office.

Microsoft has also offered 45 additional virtual keyboards for these languages. Windows Live, including e-mail, instant messenger, online storage, photo gallery, social networking, calendar, online storage, personal home page and more is also now available in seven Indian languages comprising Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.

The company has also showcased a version of their recently made available Windows 7 Beta in Hindi language.

Moreover, the Captions Language Interface Pack (or CLIP) has also been launched for vernacular language developers.

CLIPO is a tool, which makes use of a tooltip caption to display translations for user interface items in Visual Studio 2008. The product is launched in Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya and Tamil.

This is the first time, when Microsoft is launching a tool specifically to help pupils and beginner developers in India use the product in their individual language.