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On July 15, 2010, India announced a symbol for the rupee. Within 24 hours, a Mangalore-based technology start-up — Foradian Technologies — was ready with a font for it.
With hardly a few days left for the second anniversary of its announcement, many manufacturers are yet to come out with keyboards having rupee symbol. However, Foradian Technologies' rupee font gets downloaded every day, even now.
2-crore mark
“Our rupee font was a quick-and-dirty hack, which solved a burning problem two years ago,” says Mr Unni Koroth, Chief Executive Officer of Foradian Technologies.
He told Business Line that the rupee font download has crossed two-crore mark through various mediums.
“We are seeing 1,000-2000 downloads a day even now,” he said.
Nearly 92 per cent of these downloads are coming from India, and another two per cent from the US.
The rest of the download is taking place from countries such as the UAE, the UK, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Qatar.
To a query on the USP of this font, he said: “Simplicity”.
The freely downloadable rupee font of Foradian was mapped on the ‘grave accent key' (the key above the tab key on the left hand side of the computer keyboard).
Users have to just select ‘rupee' font from the dropdown list of their fonts in their application, and to press the ‘grave accent key'.
Brand value
Asked what advantage did the company get from this venture (as it was freely downloadable), he said the benefit for the company was the brand value it achieved.
“Everyone — from common man to CXOs in multinational companies — remember us as ‘Rupee Foradian'. We are also proud that we are already a part of an important event in our nation's history,” Mr Koroth said.
To a query on the future of the company's rupee font once the symbol becomes a part of computer keyboard, he reiterated it was a quick-and-dirty hack two years ago. “Now we don't support or recommend the font,” he added.
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