Webdunia ready with language software product

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal
New Delhi
Indore-based Webdunia.com, one of the pioneers in developing language portals has finally come out with a language software product for the retail market. The product called Windik has seven languages--Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telegu and English with Assamase, Bengali, Oriya to be added shortly.
The software runs on Windows platform and can do most of the functions offered on Office.
However, the company is yet to come out in the retail market with the focus now being on promoting the product through awareness generation. Towards this end, it has tied up with NIIT as a co-sponsor for its World Computer Literacy Day Program during which Webdunia would distribute free copies of its software to each participant who could use the free software for a limited period of time.
Simultaneously, the company would also conduct roadshows and initiate dialogues with OEMs to be sold as bundled products. Said Vinay Chhajlani, CEO, Webdunia.com, "The focus right now is really to build awareness about the product rather than make a launch immediately. We plan to have a retail launch sometime in December." Details about retail pricing has not been decided yet. But the company is looking at developing a base of channels who would retail its product.
Webdunia has been one of the leading developers of software in Indian languages and has enabled Indian languages on a number of leading portals like Rediffmail.com etc. With its immense exposure in doing projects related to developing software in Indian languages, it was only a matter of time that the company came out with its own product.
The Indian language software market in the country is currently estimated by Dataquest as Rs 100 crore with the potential market size pegged at even Rs 500 crore. It is not for nothing that Pramod Mahajan, Union Minister for Communications and IT, keeps harping on the need to develop software in Indian languages and applications that would suit the needs of India's millions. With English as the only dominant computing language used in the country, there are fears that India is going to face another division in the form of the digital divide. Other than Webdunia's offering Windik, other Indian language software solutions available are iLeap from CDAC and Shreelipi.