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Lecture 1
Localization
10/15/08 1
The Context is E-
Commerce
This is a time of significant shift in the development of e
commerce and the Internet. Over the next several years
there will be a dramatic change in the demographics of
online buyers – the paying customers of today’s e
commerce. In 1999, American online users represented only
43% of all online users. That percentage will fall to 33% in
2003. The online consumer society is becoming increasingly
global.
10/15/08 2
Consumer as Foreigner
Of even greater significance is the fact that ecommerce
sales to customers outside the U.S. will exceed domestic
sales by 2003. The U.S. portion of ecommerce revenue will
fall from 61% of 130 billion dollars to 44% of 1.6 trillion
dollars. By 2004, the European Internet economy is
expected to break the 4 trillion dollar mark, growing at a
compound annual rate of 87%. Western Europe is expected
to lead all regions with 692 billion dollars in global online
exports in 2004, led by Germany’s 144 billion dollars in
crossborder sales. North America will move 23% of its
exports online, with the U.S. pumping 210 billion dollars into
cross border ecommerce. The AsiaPacific region will reach
219 billion dollars in 2004, sparked by 57 billion dollars in
Japanese online exports.
10/15/08 3
Global, Globalize,
Globalization
These dramatic numbers mean that companies that intend
to sell online will have to globalize their web presence and
their products in order to reach the majority of the online
marketplace. They will have to make their web sites,
software interfaces, and product documentation available in
the languages and cultural styles of an increasingly diverse
and international market by applying a process called
localization – the translation of content and adaptation of
form to reflect the expectations of one or many given
locales. Sites that fail to localize their content and
concentrate only on the 704 billion dollar domestic market
will be giving up their share of almost 896 billion dollars of
available revenue.
10/15/08 4
Globalization is a Total
Business Strategy
Business strategies and activities focussed on marketing
and sales. The search is for total enterprise solutions and is
supported by top management. Globalization accounts for
the economic and legal factors – but must rely on experts for
the cultural and linguistic issues involved.
G11N
10/15/08 5
The Context is Global
Business
Of American companies that market products globally,
over 40% of their total revenues come from
international sales. Many of these companies market
hightechnology products such as software, medical
instrumentation, computerassisted manufacturing
devices, and so on.
10/15/08 6
Products with High
Most of Information Content
these products have a high training and/or
documentation overhead, with instructions on the
assembly, use, maintenance, and repair of the products
delivered via off and online electronic documentation.
Further, many of them have embedded software
components, use online databases, and electronic
user interfaces that must be delivered internationally to
target markets with different cultural and linguistics
contexts..
Support Marketing
Customer, Technical, Web UI Packages, Web
User Interfaces
CBT Documentation
Computer-based-training Manuals, Help Files
10/15/08 7
Software Industry: Leading
Global
A classic example Commerce
of the growing trend toward
global marketing is the software industry. By the
early 1990’s, major U.S. software companies were
averaging seven languages per each product
shipped internationally. A series of unfortunate
experiences with getting international versions of
software products to market in a timely fashion,
and the resulting losses of revenue, taught U.S.
software companies the value of shortening the
time required to enter foreign markets with
products “internationalized” for the designated
international target market. Today, with an
emphasis on simultaneous shipment, larger
companies often publish products simultaneously
in over 30 languages for just as many target local
cultural markets.
10/15/08 8
Global E-Commerce:
Many companies are looking to duplicate the success
Difficulties
of the Ecommerce efforts in the United States in other
countries, but they're finding that it isn't as easy as it
might seem. Companies can't create a single Web site
or a single version of a product and expect to reach
customers and distributors around the world, according
to industry analysts. "Global Ecommerce doesn't
exist," says Martha Bennett, VP of research for Giga
Information Group. "The moment you have to deliver
physical goods, you're up against every piece of
legislation that exists in the real world." Not to mention
every cultural and language barrier.
Legal
Language Culture
Regulatory
10/15/08 9
Even More
Difficulties
Companies that attempt to reach other markets via the Web
run into a host of issues. These include managing different
marketing strategies in different markets, securing adequate
resources, and managing channel conflicts. Other difficulties
include managing multilingual content, technical obstacles
such as different writing systems, and cultural and legal
barriers of all kinds.
A specialized industry arose to deal with these difficulties.
10/15/08 11
Who is Involved:
1. Software / Content Developers
Organizations
a.Software Engineering / Web Design
b. Project Management / Quality Control
c.Translation/ Localization / Tech Writing
2. Affiliates & Distributors in the Target Country
3. Localization Companies (Vendors, Global/Regional)
a. Project management / Quality control
b. Internal / External Localizers & Translators
• Industry Associations (LISA)
• Tool Makers
• Trainers
10/15/08 12
Who is Involved:
1. Project managers
People
2. Translators (Generic)
3. Localization Translators (Specialists)
4. Terminologists
5. Internationalization/Localization Engineers (Software
Background)
6. Proofreaders, QA specialists
7. Testing engineers
8. Multilingual Desktop publishing specialists
10/15/08 13
Origins of the
The origins of the Industry
industry lie in early concerns with
writing systems and character sets, but once these
issues were resolved (e.g., with Unicode), attention
turned to strategies and tools for making the
“translation” of software and other electronic
documentation easier, faster and less disruptive to the
software or web development processes.
10/15/08 14
Isolating Language
and Culture from
Product
For software packages, this was accomplished by
engineering culture and languageneutral software
kernels that can be compiled together with separate
“locale packages” usually contained in independent
resource files (internationalization). The software
techniques for isolating language/culture content
(localization), and the tools for manipulating the
isolated content (localization tools) are part of a rapidly
growing industry.
10/15/08 15
Internationalization
Internationalization is an engineering process whose objective
is optimizing the design of products so that they can more
easily be adapted for delivery in different languages and in
locales with different cultural requirements (localization).
Internationalization is a precursor to localization and its
purpose is both to lower the effort and cost of localization and
translation and to increase the speed and accuracy with which
localization can be accomplished. In an age where the
simultaneous release of multilingual documentation, web
pages or software is a corporate objective, such strategies are
I18N
indispensable.
10/15/08 16
Localization
Localization is the process of
preparing localespecific versions of a
product and consists of the translation
of textual material into the language
and textual conventions of the target
L
locale and the adaptation of non
textual materials and delivery
mechanisms to take into account the
cultural requirements of that locale.
10N
Localization is currently one of the
fastestgrowing sectors of the
international economy. Localization
vendors provide critical international
business services such as webpage
translation and software localization
for multilingual versions of software.
10/15/08 17
An Integrated
I18N and L10N together comprise a
Process
complete process that makes the
adaptation of a product line for a
different linguistic and cultural locale
costeffective and successful.
•I18N is “stuff” you have to do once.
•L10N is “stuff”you have to do over
and over
The more stuff you push into I18N out
of L10N, the less complicated &
expensive the process (Schmitz, 2001)
10/15/08 18
What is the Target of I18N
and L10N
10/15/08 19
No Rush To
Globalization
According to research firms such as IDC only 45% of sites
make any effort at all to accommodate nonU.S. customers –
even if doing so could be immensely profitable. Those
companies that do market products globally receive over 40%
of their total revenues from international sales, so it is clear
that the investment in globalization (e.g., translation and
localization) yields a significant return on investment. Why,
then, have fewer than half of the all web sites in the United
States made any effort to localize?
?
10/15/08 20
Some Reasons
• Lack of knowledge: businesses don’t understand the technical
processes involved in globalization and how to evolve costeffective
globalization.
• Lack of expertise: implementing a globalization strategy requires
human expertise in specialized subject areas (foreign language
technical terminology, foreign character sets, multilingual technical
communication, translation, cultural assessment), which most
companies don’t have on staff.
• Lack of technical preparation: carrying out a costeffective
globalization strategy requires successful preparation of the web
pages, software interfaces, or product documentation to be globalized
before contracting with external vendors to supply translation and
localization services (a preliminary process called internationalization).
• Lack of resources: globalization can be expensive even if carried out
properly. With every new market entered (new language, new cultural
profile) there is additional localization expense.
10/15/08 21
Why the Need for
Localizers,
Globalization Then?need for the
has created an unprecedented
translation of software and web sites into localespecific
versions. There has been explosive growth in demand for
translation and localization services. In 1999 it was
estimated that localization comprised 32 percent of the $11
billion world market for translation. This market can be
expected to grow dramatically! Currently, fewer than half of
the world's businesses are actively implementing
internationalization and localization agendas. But, as
companies wake up to the need for globalization, one thing
will become obvious: there is a shortfall in quality language
industry services – I18N and L10N. The rush of new
business to the Internet will create a demand that has
already begun to overtake the supply of individuals and
companies who can translate and localize for them. This
shortfall in language service vendors will create a bottleneck
10/15/08 22
A Chronic Shortage
Why is there such a disparity between the demand for
language services and the ability of the language industry to
meet that demand? One of the most important reasons is
that there is a chronic shortage of trained personnel in the
language industry. Qualified candidates for positions in
translation, localization, internationalization, and language
related project management are very difficult to find.
The language industry is relatively immature. It is composed
of young language service companies that are highly
projectstructured. This means they have relatively heavy
investments in expensive, highly trained personnel with
hardtofind skills.
10/15/08 23
Localizer Skill Set 1
Level 1
•Comprehensive knowledge of onlinehelp related
questions
•Comprehensive knowledge of HTML issues in L10N
• Competent HTML coder
•Able to parse, resize and recompile RC files
•Working knowledge of at least one: general parser,
resource editor, image editor, HTML editor, CAT/MAT tool
(Austraat, 1997)
10/15/08 24
Localizer Skill Set 2
Level 2
•Advanced knowledge of all Level 1 items plus
•Able to compile Visual Basic and C++ programs
•Working knowledge of all commonly used resource editing
tools
•Working knowledge of PhotoShop
•Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office
• Working knowledge, CAT / MAT
• Can Understand Advanced Aspects of HTML
10/15/08 25
Localizer Skill Set 3
Level 3
•Expert knowledge of all Level 1 & 2 items plus
•Able to write Visual Basic and/or C++ programs
•Able to create utilities in at least one macro / scripting
language
•Able to write HTML / XML applications and Scripts
•Able to provide highlevel consulting on all localization
related questions internally and externally
10/15/08 26
Next Week
Communication, Culture, Software and the Web
•Multilingual / Multicultural Information Delivery: Issues
and Trends
•InterCultural Communication
•Language and Writing Systems
•Encoding / Character Sets & Unicode
•Nonlinguistic Cultural Issues (Iconic, Symbolic,
Logical, Perceptual)
10/15/08 27