USE OF ARMENIAN FONTS ALSO IMPORTANT FOR DEVELOPMENT OF ARMENIAN IT SPHERE

Noyan Tapan
Jul 12 2007

YEREVAN, JULY 12, NOYAN TAPAN. For small countries, it is difficult to
be engaged in protection of copyright, as large financial investments
are needed for that. Armen Grigorian, the Secretary of the Council
on Assistance to Development of Information Technologies, expressed
such an opinion during the forum under the title "The importance of
protection of copyright and introduction of programs and Armenian
fonts for further development of the IT sphere." That event was held
on July 11 on the initiative of the National Book Chamber of Armenia,
the Microsoft company.

Grigor Barseghian, the Director of Microsoft Armenia, said that
countries grow rich, in particular, thanks to investments to the
sphere of IT use and protection of copyright. In his words, the
first obstacle in the way of development of IT use sphere is lack of
computers: there are 150-180 thousand computers in the country, which
is the evidence of the fact that only 5% population uses computers,
the level of Internet use is the same. On the other hand, according
to surveys held in 123 countries, Armenia takes the first place by
the index of production implemented on the domestic market of Armenia
with violations of copyright.

In G. Barseghian’s words, such a situation forces authors to work in
countries where their rights are protected. Besides, this situation has
a negative impact on the index of investment environment in Armenia.

The organizers of the event emphasize the necessity to work out and to
introduce Armenian fonts intended for the Unicode computer system to
the multi-media, publishing, office work spheres. In their opinion,
the drivers being used at present for entering texts (driver KDWIN,
WinKeys, NLS, ArmKeyb) do not meet modern requirements, not giving
the possibility to enter the symbol of the dram, number, or the symbol
of eternity.