tIffa Ot13Z01.

f

he word-
processor
revolution
has hit Is-
rael in a
big way.
Figures
show that
there are already about half a
million PCs in the country,
and the total is growing at the
staggering rate of 100,000 a
year! This may be relatively
small in international terms,
but it has created a market
in Israel for local software.
Many of these Israeli soft-
ware programs have been
so successful, and in many
cases so innovative, that
pursuit of overseas mar-
kets became inevitable.
There are already dozens
of software firms produc-
ing a wide variety of pro-
grams under such names
as Edusoft, Malam Sys-
tems, Magic Software,
Mashov Computers, Se-
mech, M.L.L., Software,
M-Systems, QX Enter-
prises, Aladdin, Liraz,
Cannel Software and
others.
Naturally, there
has been demand for pro-
grams which operate in both
Hebrew and English, and sev-
eral have appeared on the mar-
ket, but with the introduction
of Windows in the PC field it re-
mained for a small (but rapidly
growing) firm in Jerusalem,
called Kivun, to produce a pro-
gram which can meet all needs
in this area.
Banks, schools, professional
people, industry and others who
require both languages in the
same document have found that
Dagesh meets their needs. At
the simple touch of the mouse,
the direction of text entry can
be reversed, and words in one
or another of the languages may
be inserted without any clum-
sy fumbling.
But Kivun has ambitious
plans to include other lan-
guages as well, each with its
own accents, umlauts, etc.
Trade in the new Europe knows
no boundaries, and a multilin-
gual word processor would fa-
cilitate correspondence, billing,
contracts and the like.
The new program is called
Accent, and it has come into al-
most instant demand. Its lin-
guistic diversity is enormous.
French, German, Italian, Span-
ish, Dutch and Russian were to
be expected. But the user of this
Israel-produced word processor
can at the touch of a finger go

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A new word-processing program in Israel
is multi-multi-lingual.

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CARL ALPERT SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

also into Finish, Icelandic, Nor-
wegian, Swedish, Danish and
Portuguese. And since the key-
board for many of these lan-
guages differs from the
standard English keyboard, Ac-
cent provides the appropriate
setup as well.
That's not all. There are dif-
ferences between Paris French,
Swiss French and Montreal
French. Accent supplies what-
ever version is required. The
same is true of Berlin German
and Swiss German, Madrid
Spanish and Latin American
Spanish.
With Windows it also pro-
vides a perfect example of
WYSIWYG ("what you see is
what you get)."
But the business world is
constantly expanding, and so
Accent now also includes Pol-
ish, Romanian, Croatian, Al-
banian, Slovenian, Slovakian,
Turkish, Greek, Sebvian and
Ukrainian. The next step will
be languages of the Far East,
and preparatory work is already
under way.
The program is suitable for
all IBM compatible computers,
which constitute some 90 per-
cent of all personal computers
used today.
In the big business of word
processors, Kivun may be small
with only 40 employees. Com-
petition is bound to come, but
in the meantime it has the jump
in the multi-lingual market.
The founders of the firm are
putting all profits back into the

The new program is
called Accent, and
it has come into
almost instant
demand. Its
linguistic diversity
is enormous.

business and growing within
the limits of available capital.
They do not want to repeat
the mistakes of Luz, the Israeli

solar energy firm, which was a

smashing international success,
but collapsed because it grew
too rapidly.
Kivun is the brainchild of two
brothers, Bob and Jeff Rosen-
schein. Their parents were
Holocaust survivors from Hun-
gary who settled in Harrisburg,
Pa. Bob and Jeff came to set-
tle in Israel in 1983 and 1986. 0