🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently, I distributed the consolidated answers to a couple of questions
concerning "What are the most popular languages/minor languages for
localization?"

In addition, I appended several questions related to my perception of
the answers.  Here are the consolidated responses to those questions.

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
*========================================================================*


> Why didn't anyone answer Chinese as a most popular language for
> localization?

Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

Cost benefit:  Chinese needs to be DBCS and the market size is small
compared to the cost of localizing. Also, and this is very significant,
piracy is so bad in the Chinese markets (particularly PRC, but also
Taiwan) that it is very hard to make a profit.  Example: Foxpro
accounts for about 65% of the PRC database market...Microsoft has not
sold a single copy in PRC!!!


Sender: Vincent Li (vli@mprgate.mpr.ca)

I think it's a matter of economics. When you start dealing with Chinese,
you must deal with 16bit characters. There's no way around it. Then there's
also the input methods you have to consider. Mainland China, although have
the largest population in the world, computer isn't exactly a household
item as in most "western" countries. In addition, I think lots of Chinese
who do use computers a lot are reasonably fluent in English, or at least
is used to the English version of the software, such as in places like
Hong Kong. The short answer is it's hard! Japanese is comparable, but I don't
think it's nearly as difficult as Chinese, it has a well established market,
and a lot more cash.
However, I would think this should be an emerging market that have very
big potentials and should not be neglected.


> Why did only one person answer Russian?

Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

Market size is NOT that big.  How many 386 machines do you think
exist in Russia?  Piracy is also an issue.  (But, we DO localize,
because it is not that hard).


> Why did only two people answer Arabic?

Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

Again, not that big a market, in terms of PCs.


> Aren't Chinese, Russian, and Arabic HUGE markets?

Sender: lunde@mv.us.adobe.com (Ken Lunde)

	These three countries have huge potential markets, but they also
have a software piracy problem -- you will probably sell only a few copies,
then local software stores will sell it for the cost of the disks plus a
small duplication fee. This is also a problem in Southeast Asia.
	I was in Brunei this past April (visiting my wife's parents who
are professors at the university there). I decided to visit a software
store, and I was shocked when I was told I could get Adobe Illustrator
for $5 per disk ($5 Brunei, not US -- about $3 US). They had a whole
catalog of software along with these sorts of prices.
	Just my $0.02 worth...

-- Ken Lunde
   lunde@mv.us.adobe.com

P.S. I think that these markets (China, Russia, etc.) are moving toward
     less piracy. A lot is just education: just because you *can* copy
     something doesn't mean that you should.


Sender: Suzanne <artemieff@aiag.enet.dec.com>

Perhaps in the future, but not now....there are very few Chinese and Russians
who have their own computers or probably who even use computers.  I personally
*love* Russian, and there may be a huge potential market there, but my guess
is that it's a bit early for Russian to be high on the list.


Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

NO.  Also, in PRC (China) there is absolutely NO distribution
channel.  Lets not confuse market size with population.


Sender: Vincent Li (vli@mprgate.mpr.ca)

These should be. I am surprise also. A matter of economics, I'd think.
And it's just simply hard. Both French and German, for example, still use
8 bit fonts with Latin1 character sets. You can encode these even for text
terminals. None of Chinese, Russian or Arabic can use the old style text
terminals, which many systems may still have to support, such as allowing
for modem dial-ins. (Which raises another question, it might not be so
bad for 8 bit character sets, but is there modem software out there which
will support 16 bit character sets?) Russian uses Cyrillic, but you can
still type things in directly. Arabic is a script display, but they also
have a sort of alphabet, but not quite as simple in the way they are put
together. Chinese has no alphabet. The short answer still seems to be it's
hard to do.


> Why didn't anyone answer Czech as a most popular minor language for
> localization?

Sender: Stanislav Fritz <stanf@microsoft.com>

We do localize in Czech, and we have a sales office in the Czech
Republic (it is hard to remember that name, as my mother is from
Czechoslovakia).  I would say that Czech and Polish are the top former
communist markets targeted, with Russian the big "potential" market.


Sender: Vincent Li (vli@mprgate.mpr.ca)

Hmmmm...something to explore, I suppose. 8-) I think many North American
developers are just not aware of it.