MS bridges digital divide

Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd recently announced a strategy aimed at
supporting the Union Ministry of Communication to bridge the digital divide in
India.

The announcement followed discussions between Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of
Communications and IT and Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect,
Microsoft at Redmond, the IT major's headquarters.

Microsoft will partner with the Ministry of Communications and IT in six
strategic areas including driving PC penetration, accelerating IT literacy,
ensuring affordable access to technology in rural areas, ushering in
e-governance, enabling Local Language Computing and creating a secure IT
environment. Microsoft also announced the launch of a multilingual Windows XP
Starter Edition for India.

"The announcements by Microsoft including the launch of a new
multilingual Windows XP Starter Edition for India, are steps in the right
direction. The various steps announced today address important issues like IT
literacy, taking high-quality, interactive IT education to schools in India,
availability of local language computing solutions and e-governance," said
Maran. "There is an urgent need to enable affordable access to locally
relevant IT applications at a broad level. I believe that through effective
private-government partnerships we can deliver on this objective."

Elaborating on the announcements, Gates said, "We are delighted to be
working with Maran towards our common goal of bridging the digital divide for
people across India. In particular, I'm excited about the promotion of
e-Governance technologies, the expansion of teacher education and broadening our
Windows XP Starter Edition for India offering to better meet the needs of Indian
citizens."

Key working areas

• Microsoft to broaden language availability for first time
  PC users.

• ICT-based education to be extended to all districts in
  India further.

• Strengthening of Project Bhasha, a program focused on
  providing local interfaces for Windows and Office in 14 Indian languages.

• Research in Indic language computing technologies to be
  conducted.

• Microsoft to offer a range of products, services,
  consultancy, training and support to rural entrepreneurs.

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Bangalore