Palaniappa Bros publish eDictionary

S Gopikrishna


Chennai

City-based Palaniappa Brothers, a leading publishing house, is all set to get into IT business actively. As part of this key initiative, the company is launching an English-English-Tamil dictionary in digital form called `Pals eDictionary', in Kanipori Thiruvizha, a mega IT awareness program to be conducted in Madurai (24-27 December 2000). The first-of-its-kind digital dictionary in the regional language has two key applications, eDictionary browser and eDictionary search. The Pals eDictionary software CD is priced Rs 300 only.

"The software is priced low in order to bring more users and surely, it's the unique project in regional software arena in India," claims P Chellappan, Proprietor, Palaniappa Brothers.

In the browser, a user can find meanings for all the words which are arranged in Alphabetical order. Totally, the browser has 3,308 pageviews and key-search functions are available for each letter of the Alphabet. "Also, it has 21-page appendix containing abbreviations, irregular verbs, degrees of comparison and Greek Alphabet," he said.

The software is compatible to Windows 95/98, Windows NT and Windows 2000 platform and based on Tamilnet `99 keyboard standards. It also follows TAM font encoding standard approved by the Government of Tamil

Nadu.

"The software comes with an option of changing the interface from English to Tamil and vis-a-vis," said

Chellapan.

In search application, a user has the facility of searching for meanings of a word of his/her choice. They no need to browse the entire contents of the dictionary. It also has an `extended search' function for listing more related words, besides whole word search and partial word search. "The other unique function of this software is that every word is hyperlinked which helps users to find synonyms for any word from any part of the text," said Chellapan. "We have invested Rs 1 lakh for technology itself."

The company plans to market this CD both in India and abroad. In the domestic market, it would go through its existing channel network, besides appointing some new partners. "We also plan to stack (Pals eDictionary) in all CD selling points and bundle with other hardware and software products too. The company is in advance stages of negotiations with few prospective vendors," he said.

Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the US are the overseas market where the company plans to promote its product, and in the process of appointing dealers there. "We hope to sell over 6,000 CDs in the next one year, in the domestic and overseas market," he said.

The other IT initiatives of the company include bringing entire range of children's book into digital form and publishing a CD on great leaders of the Indian history. "Our entire focus would be on bringing more and more eBooks in the coming years as Net is the future," he said.