What is UNICODE

Fundamentally computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters
by assigning a number for each one. Before Unicode was invented, there were hundreds of
different encoding systems for assigning these numbers. No single encoding could contain enough
characters: for example, the European Union alone requires several different encodings to cover all
its languages. Even for a single language like English no single encoding was adequate for all the
letters, punctuations and technical symbols in common use.
The name 'Unicode' is intended to suggest a unique, unified, universal encoding.
These encoding systems also conflict with one another. That is two encodings can use the
same number for two different characters or use different numbers for the same character. Any
given computer needs to support many different encodings; yet whenever data is passed between
different encodings or platforms, that data always runs the risk of corruption.
UNICODE standard is the universal character encoding standard, used for representation of
text for computer processing. UNICODE standard provides the capacity to encode all of the
characters used for the written languages of the world. The UNICODE standards provide
information about the character and their use. UNICODE standards are very useful for computer
users who deal with multilingual text, business people, linguists, researchers, scientists,
mathematicians, and technicians. UNICODE uses a 16 bit encoding that provides code point for
more than 65000 characters ( 65536). UNICODE standards assigns each character a unique
numeric value and name.
UNICODE provides a unique number for every character irrespective of the platform or the
program or the language. The UNICODE standard has been adopted by such industry leaders as
Apple, HP, IBM, JustSystems, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys and many others.
Unicode's success at unifying character sets has led to its widespread and predominant use in the
internationalization and localization of computer software. The standard has been implemented in
many recent technologies, including XML, the Java programming language, the Microsoft .NET
Framework, and modern operating systems. It is supported in many operating systems and in all
modern browsers. The emergence of the Unicode Standard, and the availability of tools supporting
it is among the most significant recent global software technology trends.
Incorporating Unicode into client-server or multi-tiered applications and web sites offers
significant cost savings over the use of legacy character sets. Unicode enables a single software
product or a single website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries
without re-engineering. It allows data to be transported through many different systems without
corruption.

The Unicode consortium is a nonprofit organization founded to develop, extend and
promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of texts in modern
software products and standards. The membership of the consortium represents a broad spectrum
of corporations and organizations in the computer processing industry. The consortium is
supported financially solely through membership dues.