Microsoft’s Cortana Now Supports Persian

Microsoft recently announced that its personal digital assistant can now support Farsi for instant translations.

Though right now, the personal assistant can only speak and understand half a dozen languages (English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese), it is expected that more languages will be added to the software over time.

Cortana was developed for Windows Phone to compete with rivals like Apple’s Siri and Google Now. Right now the software is considered as one of the main features of the newly released Windows 10.

“Cortana, with the help of Microsoft Translator, places powerful translation technology at your fingertips by instantly translating words, phrases, and sentences from English or Chinese (depending on your edition) to almost 40 languages.”, Microsoft Translator team wrote in a blog post.

Last year more than 60 thousand people voted for a suggestion on Microsoft’s Windows Feature Suggestions, asking for access to Microsoft Store for Iranian people. We recently tried to access the store with an Iranian IP, but the message we encountered was “Store is not available in your country or region.”

The suggestion still tops the list on the page, but we haven’t seen much changes in Microsoft’s policies towards its Iranian users.

As the sanctions imposed on Iran’s economy are getting relaxed, Microsoft is noticing the big opportunity in this market. Though Apple’s OSX has been catching up in the recent years, Windows OS is still the prominent dominant in Iran’s market (more than 97 percent). Right now, most Windows copies are not legitimate, but this could change if Microsoft officially enters the country.