The Hindu : Front Page : Move to standardise computing for Tamil SMS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 16, 2006

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Move to standardise computing for Tamil SMS

K. Ramachandran

Forum to release set of recommendations at July 22 conference

CHENNAI: A serious attempt at standardising Tamil language computing for use in mobile phones will begin next week in Chennai.

The Tamil Virtual University and Kani Thamizh Sangam (KTS), a forum for Tamil computing enthusiasts, will release recommendations at a conference on July 22 for establishing coding and other standards for Tamil language use in SMS solutions in mobile phones or PDAs.

Conference organisers say that about 50 per cent of mobile phone users in Tamil Nadu cannot use the English-based applications such as SMS. "Mobile phone usage will go up once applications such as SMS can be made in Tamil. But before this computing solutions, the coding and localisation efforts should be standardised," says Director of Tamil Virtual University, V. Sankaranarayanan.

Parallel efforts are being made to create software applications in Tamil. "Each has its own advantage or deficiency. So we need a standard format for all applications so that any mobile phone will support the same SMS or related applications globally. The conference can help in evolving a consensus on the way to go forward in standardisation efforts," he says.

Academician and former IT adviser to the State, M. Anandakrishnan, says a consensus is needed on use of coding standard for Tamil language solutions in mobile phones.

"We need one coding standard. The standardisation efforts cannot be emotional. Some sections want UNICODE standards adopted, and others TAM or TAB standards.

But what is more important is a solution that works in the background and converts the text from one standard to another, without the subscriber knowing it. This is where the Tamil Nadu government can play a role by having a strong monitoring body to set up and implement the mobile computing standards in Tamil," he says.

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