Bi-lingual portal launched

NEW DELHI, August 27 : A-cube Software, a

web-designing company and the offshore development unit of DSF Internet

Services--a three year old web-designing firm, announced the launch of

in.orientation.com, a Web site for India with text in Hindi as well as

English. The Orientation site is a part of a global network of local,

regional and international Internet portals that are typically

multilingual--English and the local language.

Each site has a localized database of 77,000,

categorized web sites. It provides localized information such as news,

Indian IRC channels, e-mail in Hindi and English, etc. Currently the

absence of font standards prevents typing in Hindi. The firm is

negotiating with Microsoft and Netscape to evolve standards, according to

Manager-Business Development Varun Gupta. Once the standards are set,

A-cube also plans to introduce text in other regional languages.

While the USP is bilingual surfing, advertising and PR

activity will form a major role in making the site popular. According to

Mr Gupta, the first three months will involve popularizing the site, after

which a business model will be worked out.