New OS makes smartphones available to emerging Indian market

Indus OS has redesigned and simplified the Android operating system, offering a keyboard that features 12 regional Indian languages.

With a population of more than 1.2 billion people, India is becoming the next big target for smartphone technology. However, many mobile phone users in the country face barriers of language. This challenge is what developers Indus OS are planning to tackle.

The company has redesigned and simplified Google’s Android operating system with an easy-to-use interface. It also offers a regional language keyboard, tackling the language barrier faced by foreign developers in the country. Indus OS features 12 regional languages, with two million words in each and predictive text.

The system’s ability to translate these regional languages, many of which are spoken by millions of Indians, has put it in a position to grow rapidly in the country’s burgeoning technology market. The company says it has gained around two million users in six months and is aiming for 100 million in three years.

The service also features a rapidly growing online app store — the app bazaar — which offers consumers regional and global content. Additionally, the company plans to bring ‘text to speech’ in nine different local languages.

How else could developers adapt their technologies to benefit emerging markets?