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Stepping up its India focus, software giant Microsoft on Tuesday said it would launch English version of its low-cost operating system 'Starter Edition' in the first quarter of next year and set up an innovation centre in Bangalore.
"The Windows XP Starter Edition has already been launched in Hindi and Tamil and there is a demand for launching it in English. The English version of the operating system will be only for India," Microsoft corporate vice president (worldwide public sector) Gerri Elliott said at a press conference in New Delhi.
Microsoft would launch Starter Edition in other languages as well. The Starter Edition is available at Rs 1,200.
The innovation centre that the company will set up in Bangalore will support local vendors as part of its global initiative to set 30 more such centres.
"The centre will be part of the Microsoft Technology Centre in Bangalore and will be inaugurated in January next year. The centre will be set up in collaboration with local partners," Elliott said.
The centre is aimed at helping developers, independent software vendors, students, entrepreneurs and governments to develop and deploy innovative software solutions.
Microsoft presently has 60 innovation centres around the world in countries like Germany, Malaysia and China and additional 30 innovation centres will open in 2006 with facilitis in South Korea, South Africa and India.
The company, however, did not disclose the investment it would make for the innovation centres.
"We are especially pleased to be supporting the national IT goals of many of our host countries, including efforts focused on job creation, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, and creating more competitive software ISVs," said Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, prior to the GLF event. "We are listening to our government partners and strongly support their goal of long-term economic growth."
The centres provide world-class facilities and resources for students, professional developers, architects, IT professionals and researchers. Hands-on labs and other programs focus on technical and business skills development and spurring advances in areas such as 64-bit architecture, Windows Vista development and innovative application design.
Partnership programmes build software-quality certification and assessment, support for student-led research projects, and proof-of-concept projects and workshops.
Sanjay Parthasarathy, Microsoft corporate vice president for the developer and platform evangelism group, announced the debut of the centres as part of the second annual Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Asia in New Delhi, India.