Microsoft announces support for e-mail addresses in 15 Indian languages

On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, Microsoft announced support for email addresses in 15 Indian languages across its apps and services. The initiative is part of the company’s ongoing efforts to support Email Address Internationalization (EAI) across its products and services.

Going forward, you will be able to use local language email addresses, like व्यक्ति@संगठन.भारत, across Office 365, Outlook 2016, Outlook.com, Exchange Online, and Exchange Online Protection (EOP). You will also be able to send/receive mails to/from local language email addresses via Outlook client on PCs, outlook.com, as well as Outlook apps for Android and iOS.

Microsoft has introduced support for those languages that support Unicode, the international encoding standard for use with different languages and scripts. Local language email addresses are inseparably linked with Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Microsoft has shared that the company will also support additional Indian languages as and when their IDNs and email addresses become available in the future, making this feature forward compatible.

In India, users can register local language email addresses from third-party EAI address providers such as XgenPlus.

Microsoft, a member of Universal Acceptance Steering Group (USAG) along with international partners including XgenPlus, Coremail, CNNIC and SaudiNIC, is working to support email addresses in any Unicode script through its apps and services, including RTL (right to left) languages such as Urdu and Arabic.

According to Meetul Patel, COO, Microsoft India, the move will help ensure that language is not a barrier to adoption of technology which is key for digital inclusion and growth.