History of Computerization in Myanmar

Wunna Ko Ko
AWZAR
Mayangone, Yangon
Myanmar
wunnakoko@awzar.com

Soe Paing
Data Processing Advisor (Retd.)
Mayangone, Yangon
Myanmar
spaing@standfordalumni.org

Hla Min
TIDAL SOFTWARE
Palo Alto, California
United States of America
u.hla.min@gmail.com

1. Introduction/Background
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is a South-East Asian country bordering with China, India, Thailand and
Bangladesh. The history of computerization in Myanmar started in early 1970s. From then on to 1988, mainframes,
minicomputers and microcomputers were used by the governmental organizations, and were not available to the
public sector due to the economic policies of the then Socialist government. With the shift of Government's policy to
the market economy in 1988, private sector was able to embrace computerization. The introduction of limited email
connection in 1995 allowed computerization to be extended to cover Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) development.
The history of computerization in Myanmar started in early 1970s with the installation of the first computer at the
Universities' Computer Center (UCC) under a United Nations funded project. The UCC project also introduced
minicomputer and microcomputers into the country in the early 1980s. Training courses were conducted by UCC and
post graduate programs in computing were offered in conjunction with the Mathematics Department, Rangoon Arts
and Science University (RASU). In the mid 1980s, the government implemented a UN funded computer development
project at the Central Statistical Organization (CSO).
The PC revolution and a shift to market economy in 1988 resulted in the second phase of computerization. Many
private computer companies were established mainly in training and hardware. Software applications and
development followed with the opening of foreign and local private enterprises in the country.
In 1997, the government's Myanmar Post and Telecommunications (MPT), under the Ministry of
Communication, Post and Telegraph provided Internet and email connections. The third phase of computerization
came with the ICT development. At the urging of local computer companies and computer users, the Myanmar ICT
Park was established in Yangon in 2002. A second Internet Service Provider (ISP), BaganNet was also established.
Recent developments included the establishment of Yadanarbon Cyber City in upper Myanmar in December 2007.
The history of computerization in Myanmar will be presented in accordance with the three development periods:
the first from early 1970s to 1987, the second from 1988 to 1994, and the third from 1995 to present. For each period,
we will cover the infrastructure, hardware, software, training, and applications and also present how the widespread
use of computer and information technology in daily life in Myanmar lead to the localization efforts.

2. First period (early 1970s to 1987)

The first period, from the early 1970s to 1987, saw the transition of unit record machines to electronic computers with
the establishment of Universities' Computer Center (UCC), and the development of computing facilities at other
government departments.
Universities' Computer Center (UCC) was established as a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
funded project. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) executed the UCC
project. UCC was established under Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, to (a) provide
computing services for the teaching staff and students, (b) conduct training courses for government personnel, (c)
advise government departments that want to implement computer projects and departments, (d) initiate post graduate
courses in Courses in conjunction with Rangoon Arts and Science University. In 1987, UCC was transformed into
Institute of Computer Science and Technology (ICST), which offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and also
retains a computing and training facility at UCC.
Some other Government departments and Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) -- the ruling party of
Myanmar for the period -- started computerization with the advice and/or support by UCC personnel. At the end of
this period saw a small private computer training center, which enhanced the computer knowledge of the people who
do not have access to the government sponsored computing facilities.

2.1 Data Processing before UCC

Myanmar had been using unit record machines, which used 80-column punched cards, before the introduction of the
first computer in 1972. The IBM and ICL clients in Myanmar included the following: Burma Railways, Central
Economics and Statistics Department (CSED), Records Office Burma Army. Myanmar, with its state controlled
socialist economic system at that time, had nationalized banks in 1963 and probably stopped computers from being
introduced earlier.

2.2 Establishment of Universities' Computer Center (UCC)

UCC project titled Establishment of the Universities Computer Center (UCC) -- was funded by UNDP and
executed by UNESCO. One of the missions of UCC was to introduce the first computer in Burma. The project was
initiated by Dr. Chit Swe, Professor of Mathematics of the Rangoon Arts and Science University (now Yangon
University) at that time, who felt that the country and the university needed computing facilities for research as well as
for the introduction and transfer of computer technology. The Government established UCC under the Department of
Higher Education, Ministry of Education. The UCC project provided not only the computer and related equipment,
but also international experts and fellowships for training of Myanmar staff members.

Figure 1. The Front view of Universities' Computer Center (UCC)

Figure 2. Founding members of UCC

The use of the first computer in Myanmar was meant for education and training in the universities and institutes.
There were also attempts to train the staffs in the government departments and develop some pilot systems in those
departments. The installation of the ICL 1902S computer was opportune for the 1973 Burma Population Census. The
UN Census project hired keypunch machines for data entry and provided additional equipment to the computer for
processing the Population Census data.

2.2.1 Computer and Related Equipments at UCC

The ICL 1902S, an ICL 1900 Series computer system, which included a Central Processing Unit with 48K 24 bit
words memory was introduced. The symbol S, in ICL 1902S, indicated a scientific option with a floating point
processor. The system included two exchangeable 8 MB Disk drives1 with a separate controller. To allow for storage
1 Additional hardware were provided by the Population Census Project.

of bigger files, files could span more than one exchangeable disk. The system also contained 4 tape units with a
controller, a 800 cards per minute card reader and a 1300 lines per minute printer. It also contained a teletypewriter as
an operator's console where the operator interacted with the system software.
The system ran the ICL George 2 Operating system for control of the computer and to run the programs and
applications software. Fortran and Cobol high level languages were supported. The PLAN (Programming LAnguage
Nineteen Hundred) assembly language was also supported. Other software included FIND for information retrieval
from files, FILAN the language for CENSUS and SURVEY tabulation, CSL for Control and Simulation Language.
There were three non printing keypunches and one printing keypunch. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
and a Motor Alternator was also provided. The computer and data preparation areas were constructed with false
flooring to hide the cables and were fully air conditioned. Acceptance trials for the ICL 1902S started on 25 February
and formally completed on 8 March of 1973.
In the late 1970s, the UCC acquired a PDP 11/70 mini computer system for the introduction and training of on
line computing according to the advice of Professor Harry D. Huskey, a computer pioneer 2 that had worked with
Turing at NPL and also served as ACM President.

Professor Huskey also introduced microprocessors and

microcomputers to UCC. UCC bought a Cromemco Microcomputer in 1980. The Cromenco had a Z80
microprocessor with 64KB memory, two double sided 8 floppy drives. It used the CP/M operating system and had a
few utilities.

The first microcomputer was used for testing and training in the UCC.

Microcomputers were

recommended and introduced in other departments due to their low cost. Cromemco System 3s were introduced in the
Department of Health for health statistics, the Department of Land Records for land records and land use statistics, the
Irrigation Department for hydrological calculations. Applications have to be programmed in FORTRAN, COBOL,
BASIC, since none of the present day type of software was available on Cromemco microcomputers at that time.

Figure 3. PDP 11/70 Console with the operator

2 Professor Huskey also designed SWAC, coauthored a Computer Handbook and the History of Computing book.

2.2.2 Experts for Training Staffs at UCC

The UCC project provided the services of the Chief Technical Adviser Dr S. I. Saleeb, who greatly contributed to the
success of the project. The University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) was given the expert subcontract under the
project. Professor Harry D. Huskey, Chairman of the Department of Computer Science at UCSC and a well known
pioneer in computers was the coordinator of the contract. The UCSC expert subcontract was to provide four long term
(4 x one year) experts and a few short term (one month) experts, in addition to yearly visits by Professor Huskey. ICL
also provided a resident Maintenance Engineer and a resident Software Expert.
The four long term (4 x one year) experts were in the field of System Analysis and Design, Computer Science,
Operations Research, and Computer Simulation. Many well known professors in their field came as short term
experts.

Figure 4. Foreign Experts at UCC

In 1975, Professor Anthony Ralston, Professor and Head of the Computer Science Department of the State
University of New York (SUNY) in Buffalo, NY USA, and Past President of the Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) came as a short term expert in Computer Science. Professor Acton of Princeton University,
Princeton NJ USA came as a short term expert in Numerical Analysis the same year.
At the end of 1975, Professor Peter Wegner of Brown University, came as a short term expert in Computer
Science. In 1976 Professor Wilde of Stanford University came as a short-term expert in Operations Research.
Professor Leon Lasden of the University of Michigan also came as a short-term expert in Operations Research. In
1977, Professor Michael Stonebraker, the inventor of the INGRES Database Management System came as a short
term expert in Database Management Systems. The long term experts, which included Dr. Malcolm P. Atkinson, took
part in lecturing regular programs under the RASU and Institute of Economics. The short term experts gave training

courses at the center for center staff and relevant people. Professor Huskey visited the project every year for one
month and supervised the expert component as well as introduced recent developments in computer and software3.
The ICL resident engineer and software expert gave on the job training to center staff. Mr. Alic Heinrici (UK) the
ICL FILAN (ICL Census Tabulation system) expert trained Census and UCC Programmers in FILAN to be used in
Census Tabulation. Under the fellowship component of the project, center staff was sent to universities and colleges in
the UK for Masters and Diploma courses. Engineers were also sent for training at ICL UK.

2.2.3 Courses Conducted at UCC

Starting in 1974, full-time Master of Computer Science M.Sc. (Computer Science) and part-time Postgraduate
Diploma in Automatic Computing (D.A.C) were given under the Mathematics Department, RASU. In 1976, a fulltime fixed term course was started for the staff of the government departments and universities. It consisted of
Introduction to Programming with FORTRAN, Mathematics and Statistics, COBOL Programming, and Systems
Analysis & Design.
Most of the support for hardware, software, installation and maintenance of microcomputers in government
departments was provided by the UCC. The UCC as its inception was designed to support the systems by itself and
had trained hardware and software engineers. Almost all the computer personnel at the different departments and
organizations were trained or had worked at UCC. So, UCC was serving as a hub of the computerization in Myanmar
during this period.

2.2.4 Relationship of UCC to ICST

On March 29, 1988, UCC was incorporated as the computing arm of the newly established Institute of Computer
Science and Technology (ICST)4. ICST started offering Bachelor Courses in Computer Science and Technology.
Moreover, Postgraduate Diplomas and Master Degrees were offered. Some international diplomas accredited with the
NCC Ltd., Manchester, U.K., such as IDCS (International Diploma in Computer Studies, NCC) and IHDCS
(International Higher Diploma in Computer Studies, NCC) are also offered.
Training courses in programming and systems analysis and design were conducted under the UN Computing
Development project at the CSO, based on the British National Computer Centre (NCC) courses. The courses were
conducted by the UN training experts and UCC staffs.

2.3 Computerization at Other Departments

The Burma Railways transferred its processing of the goods statistics from unit record machines to run on the UCC
computer as a pilot application. The Central Economic and Statistics Department (later Central Statistical
Organization) processed the health statistics on the UCC computer as a pilot application. The Records Office Burma
3 He held workshops for PASS (Polish Assembler), ZIP, and computer organization.
4 Prior to ICST, the Department of Computer Science was established at Rangoon University.

Army and the BSPP also had some pilot applications. The Social Security Board installed a CDC/Elbit minicomputer
data entry system and processed the Social Security information on the UCC computer.
With the Japanese Government support to the Burma Medical Research Institute and other Government
departments, Cannon and Sharp microcomputers made their entry into Burma. The installation of the CDC/Elbit
minicomputer for the Social Security Board also introduced the Elbit/Daisy microcomputers. Adam Osborne
presented two of the first portable computer Osborne Is to Burma.
IBM and IBM-compatible computers were introduced by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Department of Health, by the UN in the Immigration and
Manpower Department (IMD) and by the Government in the Peoples Pearl and Fisheries Corporation (PPFC) and the
UCC.
The Burmese government never formally endorsed the use of information technology in the public sector. The
first government department to install and use its own computer was the Post and Telecommunications Department. It
received assistance from the World Bank to automate the long distance dialing system. The department installed a
CDC minicomputer system in late 1980 with World Bank funding.
The UN also provided the Department of Immigration and Manpower a Honeywell Bull minicomputer system to
process the 1980 round of the Myanmar Population Census. In 1987, the UN implemented the Computing
Development Project in the CSO, Ministry of national Planning and Finance, to promote and guide the use of
computers in government departments. The project installed an IBM 4341 at the CSO.
A private training center, named Microcomputer Course (MCC), was established in 1986. It conducted some
software training courses, such as DOS (Disk Operating System), WordStar2000, WordPerfect, Lotus, etc. The
establishment of this first private training center enhanced the understanding of computerization in public sector.

2.4 Burmese Language Processing (BLP)

From the establishment of UCC, many efforts had been made to use Burmese Language on the computer. The 6-bit
character set and the drum printer on the ICL 1902S were not conducive for BLP. UCC staff enhanced the Calcomp
Graph Plotter package to support Burmese characters. They also experimented BLP using EPROMs and dot matrix
printers. Some Burmese Language projects were started on mini computers in the mid -1980s. BLP projects studied
the various keyboard layouts for inputting Burmese characters and collating sequences. They are complementary to
the transcription techniques used by the Kyauk Sar (Stone Inscription) department and published in the Burma
Research Society journals. Later when the microcomputers were evolved in Myanmar, the efforts had been continued
on these microcomputers. A team was organized to develop Myanmar Text Editor (MTE) at UCC. MTE was
developed to work on DOS, the only Operating System available in Myanmar for IBM compatible computers at that
time.
With the development of TrueType Font technology by Apple Computer Inc., the development of TrueType
Fonts for Myanmar scripts were started on Apple computers since 1988. The TrueType Font technology had

substantial contribution to Burmese Language usage on computer. But the TrueType Font technology was developed
with a target of Desktop publishing industry. Natural Language Processing techniques were not popular and not of
high interest by the computer industry in Myanmar during this period.

3. Second Period (1988 to 1994)

1988 is an important year in the history of Myanmar. The economic system of Myanmar from 1962 to 1988 was based
on the command economy and the political system was based on the Socialist system. The uprising in August 1988
was ended by coup detat in September 1988 and the formation of the State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC). SLORC-led government changed the economic system of Myanmar into market oriented economy. This
led to a substantial change in development of computerization in Myanmar with the involvement of private sector in
the computerization.

3.1 Computer Companies in Myanmar

3.1.1 First Computer Company in Myanmar
MCC was upgraded from a training center into a private company in 1989 after SLORC allowed the formation of
public companies. It was named Myanmar Computer Company in order to keep the abbreviation of MCC. MCC was
the 7th private company registered after the military government allowed private businesses to register as companies.
Although the training center was upgraded into a company, the main business of the company was still the
training of the usage of computer software till 1990. The sale of hardware and training package started in 1990 in
combination with some courses on secretariat trainings. Some Desktop Publishing (DTP) services were also started in
1990.

3.1.2 Computer Companies in Myanmar

Many entrepreneurs started their computer related businesses mainly in training and sales of hardware -- after the
military Government introduced market oriented economy. During the period of 1988 to 1994, most of the computer
related businesses formed were in training and sales of hardware. During this period, people's awareness to use
customized software was very limited except some Government officers initiated to use customized softwares at their
departments.
KMD was a leader in both training and sales of hardware. KMD was later regrouped into a KMD group of
companies with Direct Channel Distribution (DCD) for sales of computer hardware, MRS for computer hardware
maintenance, SoftComm Technology for computer software development, and iCorner for Cyber Cafe.
ACE Data Systems Ltd (founded in 1992) was the only popular software house during this period. Its main
business activities are in Software Development, International Outsourcing, ICT Consultant, System Integration and
ICT Professional Training.

3.2 Computerization at Government Offices

The publication of newspaper in Myanmar is limited only to Government's departments. The newspaper publication
industry started using computer for the design and desktop publishing in 1993. The system was developed based on
Apple Macintosh computers.
Yangon City Development Council (YCDC), the municipal of Myanmar's capital 5, started using computers for its
utility billing system in 1995. At the beginning, YCDC used separate billing system for its utilities. For example, the
water usage had its own billing system while the property tax had a separate one. YCDC enhanced its billing system
into an integrated billing system in 1996. Mandalay City Development Council (MCDC), the municipal of the second
largest city of Myanmar, followed the computerized integrated billing system in later 1996.

3.3 Burmese Language Processing (BLP)

3.3.1 Development of Burmese Fonts
Many people had made tremendous effort to develop a system to use the computer in Burmese. Since Apple computer
was not popular in Myanmar, the development of Burmese fonts using Apples version slowed and the developers
moved their target to IBM-compatible PCs. During this period, the Myawaddy press under the Ministry of Defense
started using their in-house developed fonts for Atari computer system. This font was formally named as Dagon
Myanmar Font and can be regarded as the first Burmese font on computer developed by Myanmar national since
earlier versions of Myanmar fonts on Apple were developed by foreigners. The font had been widely used in
publishing industry. Unfortunately, the font gradually went out of use not only because of the lack of support for Atari
computer systems but also because of the advancements in Graphical User Interface (GUI) on Windows operating
system.
The development of font creating software followed with Windows 3.0 since Microsoft got license on TrueType
Technology from Apple Computer Inc. Microsoft officially included TrueType for Windows 3.1 in April 1992. Soon
afterwards, Microsoft began rewriting the TrueType rasterizer to improve its efficiency and performance and remove
some bugs (while maintaining compatibility with the earlier version). The new TrueType rasterizer, version 1.5 was
first shipped in Windows NT 3.1. There have since been some minor revisions, and the version in Windows 95 and
NT 3.51 is version 1.66. The new capabilities include enhanced features such as font smoothing (or more technically,
grayscale rasterization). The first ever Burmese fonts for Windows were developed by Aung Aung Thein and Kyaw
Kyaw Thein, lecturers of UCC and a private font developer Aung Aung. The font was named as Shwe and Mya.
Microsoft's ongoing development effort includes the TrueType Open specification. TrueType Open will work on
any Microsoft platform and Apple Macintosh machine, and includes features to allow multi-lingual typesetting and
fine typographic control. This leads to the transformation of TrueType Burmese fonts developed on Apple computer
systems into Microsoft's Windows platform. CE computer company developed CE fonts and Geocomp computer
5 Yangon was the capital of Myanmar at that time.

company developed Academy font. Myint Thu of Myawaddy press developed M-Myanmar font and Zaw Htut, a
private font developer, developed Win-Innwa font on Windows' platform. These fonts except Shwe and Mya are
still widely used in the publishing industry. Later in 1995, Myint Thu donated M-Myanmar fonts to the Government
of Myanmar so that the Government administrative bodies and the public could be used freely.
Most of these fonts included only Burmese scripts. There are more than 100 languages used in Myanmar. A few
use Roman scripts, while most use their own scripts. Win-Innwa font developer Zaw Htut started including scripts for
languages of the minorities. He named these fonts starting with Win and the font names became WinXXX and later
known as Win Family fonts.

3.3.2 Standardization of Encoding

There was no standardization on encoding of Burmese characters. A break came when the Government departments
accepted to use Unicode. Some personnel from the Unicode Consortium visited Myanmar in 1990 with the intent to
contact government officials for standardization of Burmese characters encoding. Since the government had no
official support for encoding characters, the the Unicode Consortium personnel could only meet some computer
experts from CSO, which is under the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development. The Consortium
personnel tried to collaborate with the available contacts, but with the lack of support from the Government, no
substantial improvements could be done.
In 1993, Andy Denials submitted a technical report on Burmese characters Unicode Technical Committee.
Micheal Everson submitted comment on the technical report to the Unicode Consortium later that year. Until then,
there was no awareness of the Burmese characters encoding standardization by the Government of Myanmar.
In 1994, Mikami Yoshiki, the director for Asia Pacific of the Center of the International Cooperation for
Computerization (CICC) of Japan, visited Myanmar to discuss the tasks of standardization of Burmese characters. He
met some experts from private computer companies as well as Myanmar Government officials. As a follow up of the
meetings, some experts visited Japan with CICC sponsorships for standardization of encoding Burmese characters.

4. Third Period (1995 to Present)

Before 1995, there was no Internet or Email connection in Myanmar. The availability of Internet and Email
connection made substantial progress in history of computerization in Myanmar. With access to the World Wide Web
(WWW), the public became computer savvy.
The increased usage of computers also helped the development of localization efforts. Since the computer and
WWW became part of the daily life of people, the localization of software for the public use became important. The
demand of localized software products had also increased substantially. But, the lack of standardization of encoding
Burmese characters slowed the development and improvement of localized products.

4.1 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Development

4.1.1 Registration of Country Domain (.mm)
Eagle was the first Data communication company in Myanmar. It provided email service through dial-up connections.
Since there was no law concerning Electronic Communication and Networking, Eagle was set up as a private
computer company in Myanmar. Eagle registered the country domain name for Myanmar (.mm) in 1997.
Later in 1999, Eagle was coerced to transfer the ownership of (.mm) to the Government and shut down. So, the
ownership of the country domain name (.mm) was transferred to Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT)
which is under the Ministry of Communications, Post and Telegraphs.

4.1.2 Data Communication

Eagle started the data communication in Myanmar by providing Email services to the public through dial-up
connections in 1995. MPT started its Email services through dial-up connections and leased lines to the Government
offices, diplomatic missions and limited number of selected private companies in 1997.
MPT started its enlargement projects of Data Communication Networks into Internet connection in 1998. But due
to Y2K problem, providing services to the public was deferred to the year 2000. Moreover the only gateway for Data
Communication of the domestic networks with the international network was through the satellite terminals until SEME-WE 3, an international project for data communication was connected to Myanmar in 2000.
Myanmar became a member of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries in 1997. When
ASEAN members signed e-ASEAN framework agreement in 2000, Myanmar was also included. Since MPT had
already prepared, MPT started providing Data Communication services to the public by providing Email services
through dial-up connection and leased lines.
Another Internet Service Provider (ISP), Bagan Cyber Tech, was established in 2000. It was formed as a joint
venture between the Government and the private entrepreneurs. It started providing limited Intranet services in 2000.
Later it enhanced its services into Internet in 2002. In 2005, Bagan Cyber Tech was renamed Myanmar Teleport after
it was nationalized.

4.1.3 Development of ICT Parks

In order to get substantial achievements in ICT sector, the Government organized 11 domestic ICT companies to form
a consortium with the name of Myanmar ICT Development Corporation in 2000. It was changed in 2001 into a form
of a private company to get 50 shareholders with 11 founding members as the Board of Directors. The name of the
company was also changed into Myanmar ICT Development Co., Ltd (MICTDC).
One of the main activities of MICTDC was the establishment of ICT parks. The first ICT park in Myanmar was
inaugurated on 21st January 2002 in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar at that time, and the second ICT park was

opened on 16th August 2003 in Mandalay, the upper part of Myanmar. MICTDC was renamed as Myanmar Info-Tech
Corporation in 2005. The latest development in ICT sector was the establishment of Yadanarbone Cyber City project
in upper part of Myanmar. Although the project has not been fully accomplished, the formal opening was done on
December 2007. On 25th February 2008, the Mandalay ICT park was on burnt down.

4.2 Burmese Language Processing (BLP)

4.2.1 Character Set Encoding
The Unicode specifications for Myanmar scripts were published in 1998 with the publication of Unicode 3.0.
Myanmar got its own code page from U+1000 to U+109F. But this early version of Unicode for Myanmar did not
have enough encoding for Burmese scripts. As a consequence, there was no product developed for Myanmar based on
Unicode 3.0. Some amendments for Myanmar Languages were proposed in 1999.
In order to support character encoding for Myanmar scripts -- not only Burmese characters but also ethnic
characters such as Shan, Mon, Karen, in Unicode -- some proposals had been prepared by the Myanmar
Standardization Committee and e-National Task Force. But most of these proposals ended domestically and were not
submitted to Unicode Consortium. Instead some private experts from domestic and international submitted a series of
proposals to Unicode Consortium from 2000 to 2004.
Until Unicode 5.0, the full implementation for Burmese scripts was not available. In February 2006, a series of
meetings were held for standardization of encoding Burmese scripts and ethnic scripts by the international and
domestic experts with Myanmar Language Commission with the funding support of the Government of the United
States through the U.S National Endowment for Humanities, which funded the Universal Scripts Project (part of the
Script Encoding Initiative at UC Berkeley). With the result of these meetings, a number of proposals had been
submitted to Unicode Consortium and International Standardization Organization (ISO) for standardization of
Myanmar scripts.
Some developers, including Myanmar Unicode and NLP Research Center and SIL, had been developed Myanmar
fonts for Burmese scripts and ethnic scripts with the standards submitted to the Consortium and ISO although the
standards were in the process of review by the experts.
When Unicode Consortium released its 5.1 version in 4th April 2008, the proposed standards were included. Since
these proposed standards were tested with real life data from the public during the review process, the problem in
standardization of encoding character sets for Myanmar scripts is supposed to be complete.

4.2.2 Development of Burmese Fonts

Some font developers tried to develop Unicode compliant fonts. But due to the lack of technology, complexity of
Myanmar scripts and standard implementation method, the developers could not succeed. Since Unicode Consortium
is an international recognized organization, international developers interested in developing Burmese fonts emerged.

They include SIL (United States), M17N or Multilingulization (Japan) and Burma Information Technology (India).
The domestic developers include MyMyanmar, SolvewareSolution, Alpha Mandalay, Myanmar Unicode and NLP
Research Center.
Due to the lack of technology and standard implementation methods, a new Unicode non-compliant, or pseudo
Unicode fonts evolved. Like the TTF fonts, a number of different pseudo Unicode fonts, which were not even
compliant with each other, were developed. Among them the most popular font was the one named ZawGyi
developed by a group of private developers and mainly sponsored by Alpha Mandalay. The use of ZawGyi among the
web developers is increasing and almost 90% of the Burmese Blogs, news and information sites used ZawGyi font
mainly because it is distributed as a free font.
During the process of standardization of Myanmar scripts in Unicode, some international developers such as SIL,
ThanLwinSoft developed fonts, Padauk with graphite rendering system and PadaukOT with OpenType rendering
system respectively, for Burmese and ethnic script in compliant with the proposed standard. Some local vendors such
as Myanmar Unicode and NLP Research Center and SolvewareSolution developed Myanmar3 and Parabaik fonts
respectively also in compliant with the proposed standard.

4.2.3 Burmese Language Projects

Due to the problems in standardization of encoding Burmese scripts, the localization of International software had
been delayed. There is no official version for Burmese in popular software like MS Office. In the Operating Systems
(OS) sector, there is no official Burmese version of Windows, Mac and a variety of Linux builds.
A number of local experts tried to localize International software, such as Windows OS, MS Office, Firefox,
Opera, etc. For the Open Source software, such as Firefox, there was no problem in localizing, but for proprietary
software, such as Windows and MS Office, building a localized version for our use violates the international
Intellectual Property (IP) right laws. But due to the weakness in enforcing international IP laws in Myanmar, some
developers even make money with localized versions of proprietary software.
The first official Burmese Language Project was accepted by the OpenOffice.org on 27th August, 2007.
OpenOffice.org is the first international open source vendor which has official Burmese Language Project.
OpenOffice.org is an office suite which is compatible with all other major office suites such as MS Office, StarOffice,
etc. Moreover, OpenOffice.org is available for a number of different operating systems, such as Windows, Linux,
Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, OpenVMS, OS/2 and IRIX. So, localization of OpenOffice.org for Burmese Language
can provide advantage to the office suite users of different OS platforms. The project built its beta version of first
Burmese Language features based on OpenOffice.org 2.4 and let the community get it by 29th March, 2008. These
Burmese Language features are supposed to be included officially by OpenOffice.org when it releases its version 3.1.

Figure 5. Burmese Language Project Homepage, OpenOffice.org

As the standardization of Burmese character encoding on Unicode was finalized and published on Unicode 5.1,
the international software vendors get awareness on localization of their products for Burmese language. OpenSUSE,
a Linux based OS also started its Burmese Language Translation project on November 2007. Mozilla, developer of
Firefox and a variety of other browser suite, is underway to start a Burmese Language Project.

5. Conclusion
The history of computerization in Myanmar started in early 1970s with the efforts of the academic personnel and
funding from the UNDP. Due to the Socialist System and Command Economy executed by the Government of
Myanmar at that time, the computerization was limited only to the Government Departments with UCC as a hub.
UCC initiated a number of localization projects on mini and microcomputers. But due to the lack of standardization
and technology, the success was very limited.
After the country wide uprising and coup detat in 1988, the military government changed the economic system to
market oriented system. With the introduction of market oriented system, a number of computer companies emerged.
But most of the companies emphasized on training of the use of computer system and application software and sale of
computers. The development of customized software and the usage started in early 1990s. Still that period, the use of
computer in Myanmar was limited to some experts and specialized personnel. So, even the customized software were
developed, mostly were in English. Due to the change in technology and development of TrueType technology, a
number of TrueType Fonts were developed. These were welcomed by the desktop publishing houses and the
publication industry. Due to the lack of standardization, the reusabilty and interchangeability of the raw data among
different types of fonts was impossible.
Some international experts reported to Unicode Consortium on the issue on encoding Myanmar scripts in 1993.

The interest by the Government of Myanmar on encoding Myanmar scripts was limited. This led to the limited
support by the Government departments including UCC and Myanmar Language Commission to the Unicode
Consortium and international experts. Myanmar scripts got a code page from U+1000 to U+109F in Unicode when
Unicode Consortium published its version 3.0. The implementation was still impossible due to the technology and
complexity of Myanmar scripts. In Feb 2006, a series of meetings were held in Yangon for standardization of
encoding Myanmar scripts in Unicode between the local experts and international experts with the support of the
funding from U.S Endowment for Humanities. With these meetings, a number of proposals to Unicode Consortium
and ISO for encoding Myanmar scripts were possible. The interested developers, both international and domestic,
started developing fonts in compliant with the proposed standard. After the review from the experts, Myanmar scripts
were successfully encoded in Unicode with standard implementation techniques in April 2008 when Unicode 5.1 was
published.
Since Burmese is an official language of Myanmar and about 35 million people use it as a mother tongue, the
international software vendors have been aware of its importance. The delay of standardization Burmese script let the
software vendors wait for localizing their products for Burmese language users. Once the encoding standardization got
to a beta stage, the international software vendors started their Burmese Language Projects. OpenOffice.org was the
first international software vendors on open source platform which officially started its Burmese Language Project in
August 2007. Other software vendors, such as OpenSUSE and Mozilla, are on their way to start their localization
projects for Burmese.
Burmese, the official language and used by a population of about 35 million people as their mother tongue, is the
only language which is lacking localization by a majority of international software vendors. With the development of
standardization on Myanmar scripts and the international awareness on Burmese language by the software vendors,
the localization is hoped to be achievable and completed in a short period of time.

6. Reference
1. S. Paing, Use of Microcomputer Technology in Developing Countries (including experiences in Namibia),
CISNA 1992 International Conference, 6-8 May 1992, Windhoeh, Namibia
2. W. Ko Ko, Y. Mikami, Languages of Myanmar in Cyberspace, Nagaoka University of Technology Bulletin
on Language Science and Humanity, Vol. 19. pp.249-264 (2005)
3. www.myanmarnlp.net.mm, The official website of Myanmar Unicode and NLP Research Center
4. my.openoffice.org, The official website of Burmese Language Project, OpenOffice.org.
5. www.unicode.org. The official website of Unicode Consortium
6. Pamphlets of Universities' Computer Center, from 1975 to 2008
7. Pamphlets of Myanma Post and Telecommunication (MPT), BaganNet, Myanmar Teleport, Myanmar ICT
Park, Myanmar Info-Tech

8. Newspapers published in Myanmar, from 1975 to 2008

9. Personal interviews with Zaw Htut of Myanmars' Net, Aung Aung, font developer of Shwe and Mya, Tin
Win Aung, CEO of MCC, Myint Thu of Computer Journal, Ye Myat Thu of Alpha Mandalay

7. Biography
Wunna Ko Ko: He received B.E (Electronic) from Yangon Institute of Technology in 1998, M.B.A from Yangon
Inistitute of Economics in 2001 and M.Eng (M.I.S) from Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan. He worked in a
family owned Book binding business. He also participated in Language Observatory Project. He is working as a
volunteer project leader of Burmese Language Projects at OpenOffice.org and OpenSUSE.

Soe Paing: He received B.S. & M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University USA and M.Sc. Computer
Science from the University of Southampton UK. He was a member of the UNDP/UNESCO project that installed the
first computer in Myanmar. He had served as the Data Processing/Computer Advisor in various UN projects in Syria,
Namibia, Kenya, Bhutan, Sierra Leone, Nepal and Kuwait. He also had extensive experience in training, introduction
and development of computer technology in developing countries, processing of statistical surveys and censuses,
development of statistical databases.

Hla Min: Alumnus of the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT), Rangoon Arts and Science University (RASU), and Rice
University. Worked for Universities' Computer Center (UCC), Department of Computer Science (DCS), and Institute of
Computer Science and Technology (ICST) in Myanmar, and various companies in Silicon Valley. Member of ACM and
volunteer Docent at the Computer History Museum (CHM).