C K Technologies on Tuesday launched 'Shakti Office 1.72,' the latest version of its office suite software for personal computers, priced one-tenth of Microsoft's Office suite.
"We have priced Shakti Office 1.72 at Rs 1,995 compared to Microsoft office 2003 suite's Rs 30,000 plus," Manoj R Annadurai, managing director, CK Technologies, told reporters in Chennai.
He said Shakti Office 1.72 was tailor-made for Indian market with bilingual capabilities.
"The bilingual feature allows users of the suite to switch over to either Hindi or Tamil, while using English," he said.
Annadurai said the Indian market for office suites was plagued by widespread piracy due to high-cost software and low adoption due to language barriers.
He said the company believed that the Shakti Office suite would crystallise large-scale IT adoption in India.
The Chennai-based company, which has venture capital TeNet Group owning a two-third stake, has already received two orders for over 1000 licences each from the public sector Bank of Baroda and the Tamil Nadu Police, respectively.
"Shakti Office 1.72 has the look and feel of Microsoft office suite so that PC users are not confused," he said, adding that the company hoped to sell 8,000 units this fiscal.
The company has fixed a sales target of 30,000 units in 2005-06 and 100,000 units in 2006-07.
