With a single click, a computer can learn Basque. Microsoft has launched the version in Basque of its latest products Windows Vista and Office 2007 (free from www.microsoft.es/eus), which it presented officially in San Sebastián yesterday.

Microsoft first began to work with civil servants from the Basque regional government's Linguistic Policy Office ten years ago. "At the start", says Microsoft Ibérica chairman Rosa García, "it was the regional government that encouraged and provided financial aid for translations of our applications with Windows 98, but then Microsoft took responsibility for costs and understood that Basque was another language with its own market and was crying out for translations of its products, although when we introduce new terms we ask them for help in translating them." Garcia defined the company's strategy on the Basque language as an "act of responsibility."

Although the application already exists, García and regional Culture minister Miren Azkarate are both fully aware that a huge number of Basque speakers either don't use it or don't know that it's there. This provided the motivation for the Egin klik euskarari programme to tell users that they could now do their computer work in Basque.

"It's a major step," says Azkarate, "for a small language like Basque to have a giant like Microsoft take responsibility for ensuring there are translations of its products available in languages which, from the market perspective, don't have millions of speakers or major client potential." Azkarate added that the presence of Basque in the world of technology and Internet was assured: "Given how much time our children spend surfing, for them to be able to do it in Basque a couple of hours a day is essential."

From now on, to facilitate further the use of these tools in Basque, an agreement with PC manufacturers means that Dell, Inves and HP computers will have this version pre-installed, so users will no longer have to download it from Microsoft.