[kictanet] Why Microsoft Swahili Version Failed

[Kanja Waruru]

if you want to know why the Microsoft Swahili version
failed look no further;
how many of us on this prestigious list can write and
communicate fluently in Swahili?
i have a lot of friends who visit Tanzania and are
ashamed of speaking Swahili.
regards.
kanja

--- Bernard Mwenda <bmwenda at iwayafrica.com> wrote:

> This is sad. The amount of work that has gone into
> this project is a lot. I know because my final year
> project at the university was an interface to MSDOS
> in Kiswahili. The research that went into this
> project took 3/4 of the year. The translations. at
> time we did not have swahili words for DOS commands
> so we had to reach an agreement with the supervisor
> and the kiswahili proffesors at Moi university. Well
> Sadly the project never saw the light of day even
> after I was given a B.  All the exitment just faded.
> Reason. No one in East Africa who was computer
> literate at that time cared much for the Kiswahili
> language.
> 
> The year was 1992. Supervisor was Dr. Kulubi.
> 
> Regards,
> *****************************************
> Bernard Mwenda,
> Network Management Centre (NMC) Manager,
> Afsat Communications (Africa) Ltd,
> Tel:+254 20 608621 : Fax:+254 20 602826
> Cell:+254 722 521155 (Safaricom)
> Cell:+254 736 696907 (Celtel)
> E-mail:bmwenda at iwayafrica.com
> www.iwayafrica.com
> ________________________________________
> From:
>
kictanet-bounces+bmwenda=iwayafrica.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>
[kictanet-bounces+bmwenda=iwayafrica.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
> On Behalf Of alice [alice at apc.org]
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:20 PM
> To: Bernard Mwenda
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> Subject: [kictanet] Why Microsoft Swahili Version
> Failed
> 
> Kenya: Why Microsoft Swahili Version Failed
> Business Daily (Nairobi)
> http://www.bdafrica.com/ <http://www.bdafrica.com/>
> OPINION
> 11 March 2008
> Posted to the web 11 March 2008
> 
> Beatrice Gachenge
> 
> When Microsoft announced in 2003 that it had
> launched a Kiswahili version of
> their Microsoft Office applications, linguists saw
> it as a big triumph for
> the language - and a chance to make its speakers
> have a feel of the emerging
> technology and in their own language.
> 
> However, five years later, the roar has turned into
> a whimper.
> 
> Microsoft is not forthcoming with answers, but a
> debate is shaping up on
> what may have gone wrong.
> 
> "It failed miserably on the roll out process because
> Microsoft never pushed
> the product," says Mr Patrick Opiyo, managing
> director of Rivotex Kenya, a
> consulting dealer for Microsoft Technologies, who
> was then Microsoft's
> localisation manager.
> 
> Mr Isaiah Okoth, who was at the time the general
> manager of Microsoft East
> Africa, said the new Kiswahili office application,
> if marketed well, would
> have allowed many Kiswahili speakers to experience
> personal computing in
> their home language.
> 
> It had taken close to two years to develop the
> programme at a cost of Sh8
> million, drawing linguistic experts from East and
> Central Africa. The
> programme was headed by Prof Kulikoyela Kahigi of
> the University of Dar- es-
> Salaam.
> 
> Kiswahili experts translated over 700,000 words in
> Windows and Office
> software while close to 70,000 words were translated
> in the help manuals.
> 
> The final product was targeted at about 150 million
> speakers of the language
> in the world.
> 
> But three years down the line, analysts now deem the
> product a major
> letdown.
> 
> "Technology should find itself into the language.
> Microsoft invented words
> that did not exist to fit the technology, and the
> problem with this is that
> people don't understand the Kiswahili used in the
> Microsoft Office
> applications,
> 
> " explains Mr Alex Gakuru, director of ICT Consumer
> Association.
> 
> Mr Gakuru told the Business Daily that technology is
> all about the people
> and not the gizmos or software; a concept Microsoft
> failed to consider.
> 
> Another major issue was the methodology used to
> develop the application.
> Peter Mugambi, Dean of Humanities at Kenyatta
> University, says the project
> was more of a 'private affair' than an institutional
> one.
> 
> In his view, the project did not integrate the wider
> community and also
> failed to educate people on the usage of the product
> either through seminars
> and workshops.
> 
> Although the process of changing to Kiswahili
> version is simple , the
> software has not been utilised in Kiswahili
> departments in major
> universities including Kenyatta University and the
> University of Nairobi.
> 
> By simply downloading a Language Interface Pack (
> LIP), from the Internet,
> free of charge, users of genuine versions of
> Microsoft Office 2003, can
> localize their interface by installing the LIP.
> 
> It then turns Microsoft Office, including Word,
> Excel, Outlook and
> PowerPoint from English into Kiswahili. The beauty
> of the product is that
> one can switch back to the language of choice with
> ease.
> 
> "With the Kiswahili LIP, computer users are able to
> instal a Kiswahili
> desktop version as a 'skin' on top of existing
> installations of Windows and
> standard Microsoft Office applications," said the
> consulting dealer for
> Microsoft Technologies.
> 
> Currently, the Kiswahili LIP is also available to
> Windows XP.
> 
> Analysts say the biggest issue that made the hefty
> exercise a major fiasco
> was the lack of promotion for the product.
> 
> University of Nairobi linguist and prolific author,
> Prof Kithaka wa Mberia,
> doubts whether he would have known about the project
> had he not been part of
> it; casting more doubt if the programme was marketed
> well.
> 
> There was also a conflict of policy between open
> source and proprietorship.
> Mr Gakuru says the approach Microsoft took was
> academic instead of looking
> at the programme as a community based issue, a move
> that would have resulted
> to community ownership of the product.
> 
> "If the company considered making it a community
> project where the East
> Africans who were the recipients of the product,
> then fund it, the ownership
> aspect would automatically lead to identifying with
> the product," said the
> IT analyst. "What is the essence of a good product
> that people don't know
> about? At the end of the day, who will use it?"
> 
> The idea could have been a turning point not only
> for the East African
> region but other parts of the world because several
> years back, it was
> unthinkable that computer software products and
> solutions could be made in
> local languages, of which some risk extinction due
> to dominance of English
> and other European languages.
> 
> There are 100 million Kiswahili-speakers in Kenya,
> Tanzania, Uganda and
> parts of the Horn of Africa, Great Lakes, Malawi,
> Mozambique and the Indian
> 
=== message truncated ===



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