Microsoft signs MoU with Orissa government

Wednesday, 07 April 2004, 19:30 IST
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BHUBANESWAR: Microsoft India Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Orissa government to develop a local language tool. The software giant had earlier signed an MoU to develop technology solutions in the state. Tuesday's MoU was signed for a period of one year with Asit Tripathy, Orissa IT secretary, and Sudev Muthya of Microsoft. The Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC) and Microsoft will jointly work on the local language-computing project, Bhasa. According to the MoU signed on Tuesday, OCAC will translate terminology in Oriya. Besides, it will identify appropriate government websites for hosting an Oriya language interface, an official in the IT department said. Microsoft, in turn, will develop basic support for the font and conduct training workshops required for the project, he said. The company will also invest in developing an Oriya interface for Windows and MS Office. It will provide free downloading of an Oriya interface for Windows and MS Office, he said. Microsoft had signed an MoU last February to set up a centre of excellence at the OCAC premises. It has already developed such centres of excellence in several other Indian states, including Uttaranchal, Punjab, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has created a separate department for IT and instructed officials to become IT literate. The state government has decided to encourage strategic alliances with other companies like Oracle and Sun Microsystems. The state government has plans to establish national level institutes in areas like e-governance, e-commerce, networking, multimedia and animation.
Source: IANS
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