  Intelligent Input Methods (IM) are essential for making text entries in many
East Asian scripts, but their application to other languages has not been fully
explored. This paper discusses how such tools can contribute to the development
of computer processing of other oriental languages. We propose a design
philosophy that regards IM as a text service platform, and treats the study of
IM as a cross disciplinary subject from the perspectives of software
engineering, human-computer interaction (HCI), and natural language processing
(NLP). We discuss these three perspectives and indicate a number of possible
future research directions.
