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SMS IN TAMIL
The Star, In.Tech, Aug 25, 2005
ANOTHER local mobile apps developer, Murasu Communications, has spent the last 15 to 20 years working on South Asian language scripts for the PC.
The company recently launched mobile applications that let users send SMS (short message service) in Tamil and Sinhala.
Muthu Nedumaran, chief executive officer and chief technology architect at Murasu, says, “What we have done is a framework for local language messaging. There are a lot of languages in South-East Asia that are not supported by the phone because the volumes don’t justify the manufacturers to work on this investment.
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Muthu Nedumaran: 'There are a lot of languages in South-East Asia that are not supported by the phone. |
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“Secondly, South-East Asian languages are not so easy as alphabetics like English.”
Murasu worked on a framework with which it could incorporate local language messaging with very little effort to add a new language. The company started with Tamil, then proceeded to develop an SMS engine for Sinhala.
The company is now working on another South Asian language – Malayalam. “Apparently there are about 2.5 million people in the Gulf region who speak this language and they are not able to SMS each other because they don’t know English. So, we’ll work on that language as well.
“And the other script we are working on is Khmer for the Cambodian language,” explains Muthu.
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| Now you can SMS in Tamil. |
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Although the Tamil SMS app was launched locally in January, only in late July has the company started looking for resellers.
You asked for it
According to Muthu, the company does not go into any particular language based on an assessment of how big that market is. Instead, the company develops these apps on requests from celcos or companies.
An example of this is the Telugu language script which a broadcasting company in India wants it to develop.
“This broadcasting company has a number of radio and TV stations. It wants to launch the app because it wants its viewers and listeners to communicate with it via SMS in three languages (Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu).
Two of these languages are ready; the third one, we are negotiating with them for us to start developing,” explains Muthu.
This pioneer in input method development has inhouse script experts to help it develop methods on how to input a language using a standard input device like a keyboard. The company’s technologies have even been licensed by Apple Computer Inc and are incorporated into Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) operating system.
“Our input method has the intelligence to transliterate. So you write as if you are writing in Roman. On the screen it will display in the language chosen (like Tamil or Sinhala).
“There is also a visual keyboard for those who would rather type their SMS in the script itself. This is for those who don’t know Roman script at all,” explains Muthu.
If the person receiving the SMS does not have Murasu’s software, they will read the message in Roman text.
Users do not pay anything to receive messages. However, when they want to send an SMS in Tamil or Sinhala, they have to buy the Murasu licence which is RM35 (a one-off fee).
How it works
It’s just like a prepaid number. When you buy the Murasu licence card, you get two numbers. Punch in the two numbers and the licence is activated.
“A lot of our research time was spent on researching how to get the message over the air, across to the other person. Mobile has lots of limitations as opposed to the Internet where you can send so many things in so many formats.
“Mobile is very restrictive so we had to work around those limitations. And also because we are trying to develop a framework for many more languages, we have to make sure it’s generic and it’s easily adaptable,” says Muthu.
Right now, Murasu has completed the mobile script engine for Tamil and Sinhala. Malayalam is almost completed, and Khmer is still being developed.
“The other request that we’ve been getting is for us to support Arabic on phones that don’t have Arabic capabilities because very few models of phones support Arabic language. We are considering that very seriously,” says Muthu.
Explaining how his company works on each language, Muthu says: “We embed the font, we embed the input mechanism, and then we have to device a way to package the message and send it over the air so it becomes independent of the operator.”
For the languages which already have their own input mechanism for SMS – like Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai – Murasu has a server-side application so that SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) that sign up with a celco for bulk SMS, can send messages to their customers in their own language.
The server-side app also comes in handy if companies want to get replies from customers in those languages.
Copyright Star Publications (M) Bhd
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