🚀 go-pugleaf

Here are more responses to the original question concerning "Why not
localize these languages."

Jeff
INSOFT-L List Manager

*========================================================================*
 Jeff Bowyer                         EMail:
 Computing Center		     jbowyer@cis.vutbr.cz
 Technical University of Brno
 Udolni 19, 602 00 BRNO
 Czech Republic
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Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

Weiguo Li <@earn.cvut.cz:weiguo.li@cnlab.nci.CRN.CN> wrote:
> I think the top 5 localized languages should include the Chinese language
> because it is one of the official languages according to the UN definition,
> It is also the most popular and frequently used around the world, and the
> China market will be one of the largest software market all of the world.

I would say that Chinese gets done by default after all the issues of
Japanese are resolved.  Since the technical issues are essentially the
same....why not do both languages?


Phil Helms (PHIL@MASH.Colorado.EDU) wrote:
> Though piracy may be rampant in the Chinese software market, a
> vendor could conceivably look at piracy-caused losses in such a
> potentially huge arena as an investment.  The more your software
> is spread, through whatever means, the greater your market share
> when the market finally comes of age.
> In fact, in order to try to insure the introduction of your own
> software, you might even make it available without charge in
> China.

To the comment on piracy.  An interesting view point that few companies
will take.  It is similar to the new marketing technique done by
Computer Associates.   They give away their new money management
software for free.  The idea is build the base and they will buy the upgrade.

However, since the challenges of Chinese software are not
insignificant, a company has to have enough money to "waste" to go the
route suggested for China.   As a personal opinion, based on academic
research when I was doing my two masters (thus, possibly out of touch
with the "real world") is that the Chinese market is over 5 years away
from being even reasonably big, let alone one of the biggest in the world.

Mike Kortelainen <mikak@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Something that surprises me (I tried to keep quiet, but...)
> Nobody has said anything about markets like Finland, Denmark, Norway,
> Sweden (if I remember correctly, one person mentioned Scandinavia,
> which actually is three or four separate markets, depending on your
> point of view)-
> Yes, I know they are small, but still, there are products being
> localised for these markets, and I would have thought they'd been in
> the minor languages lists.

As to my fellow Microsoftie in Ireland.  For MS all of the Greater (as
in geographic area) European languages are on the list of languages
targeted for localization--although not necessarily for EVERY product.
Something like MS money is not localized in that many languages because
the accounting/banking/etc rules can be quite different in each country
and it is not a high volume seller even in the U.S.


Sender: Rene J. Valdes (Rene.J.Valdes@cdc.com)

> Sender: Weiguo Li <@earn.cvut.cz:weiguo.li@cnlab.nci.CRN.CN>
>
> I think the top 5 localized languages should include the Chinese language
> because it is one of the official languages according to the UN definition,
> It is also the most popular and frequently used around the world, and the
> China market will be one of the largest software market all of the world.
>
> Do you think so?
>
> In my opinion, the 5 top localized languages are:
>
> Chinese,
> French,
> German,
> Spanish,
> Japanese

I'd like to make a comment and ask a question concerning the above
statements.

I agree that the Chinese language is already very important in the
localization area and will become more and more important as the Chinese
economy continues to grow and develop.  However, I think the statement
that Chinese is "the most popular and frequently used [language] around
the world" has to be taken with a grain of salt.  I think this means
most popular and frequently used among its native speakers.  English is
the most popular and frequently used language among native speakers of
other languages.  This means that a software product available in English
has, as of today, an enormously greater market than a Chinese version.
The English version will in most cases be usable and acceptable by many
nonnative English speakers in every country of the world.

This leads to another question.  In the above list of top languages for
localization, English is absent.  The obvious assumption appears to be
that all software is created in English (hopefully in an internationalized
reference version) and then localized into other languages.  Isn't really
anybody localizing into English?  Isn't anybody developing software where
the original (reference) version is in German, French, Japanese, etc. and