Google and the BOP Markets: Google Docs in Local Languages

We briefly mentioned in this space about Google Docs extending its capability to multiple languages, including numerous Indian languages. Google Docs is a cutting-edge collaborative online tool which enables users to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations and share it with others (via Google Docs Blog)

On Tuesday, we launched Google Docs in 8 Indic languages: Bengali,

Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu. These

languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people, many of whom

live in India, Sri Lanka, and other countries in South East Asia. With

this launch, Docs now support 48 languagesTo use Google Docs in your preferred language, just sign in, click

‘Settings’ in the upper right hand corner, and select a new interface

language.

By extending local language access, Google has potentially created entirely new markets for Google Docs. The challenge with access to technology for BOP users is not just about hardware, but also on the software, especially with regard to the lack of local language support in many leading software packages.