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Microsoft Plans to Create Local Language Software
zensufi writes "CNET News has a story stating that Microsoft has announced plans for a program to help governments produce local language versions of key Microsoft applications, giving the software giant a hedge against a growing international threat from open-source software." The piece explains: 'The Local Language Program will provide local and regional governments with "language interface packs" that government and academic developers can use to produce localized versions of the Windows XP operating system and Office 2003 productivity package.'
Countries like China have local regions which don't speak either Mandarin or Cantonese, yet these are most likely the only 2 Chinese languages that Microsoft localizes their products for.
Vonal Declosion
Open source, bad? HOW DARE YOU!!!11one!!!! ....but seriously, Apple has M$ completely stomped. Not only is almost every app multi-language, but they make it very easy for the third-party developers to make their own apps multilingual - it's as easy as creating a Spanish.lproj file (or whatever language). Although you do have to actually translate it....
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
I'm in China and I've never seen a non-pirate version of any piece of software, including on computers of reputable companies. Not only is there no respect for copyright, there is no understanding of the concept. The increase in profit will not be that great because everyone will use the new localised software... but in pirate copies with no money going to MS... but I guess that's ok if you rate it by convenience to humanity.
A vague unsupported statement by an AC moderated to +4 .....
But hey, MS astroturfers like to shoot fast and make a lot of noise, so I guess I'm starting to get used to it. Anyways, when was the last time you used KDE?
FYI: KDE now supports 49 languagesand the list is actively growing. On an other note, I seem to recall a story just recently about Microsoft refusing to update Microsoft Office for Hebrew on the Mac...
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Funny that it took so long for MS to realize they'd been had... I remember a friend of mine translating KDE documentation in french about 4 years ago... Not to mention the fact that asian fonts have been almost constantly present under linux, as far as I can remember. Besides, China already has Dragon Linux, and they wouldn't switch back to windows for anything else than a nuclear war threat... and even then it'd be a tough challenge! So guess what: that's not going to make a difference in the long run. MS has lost the initiative, and they're trying to make believe they still have it... I hope we can prove they're behind the Opensource community, and have been ever since linux came to being!
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Yes, it does.
Actuaclly all it does take is a text file. Not an ASCII file, a utf-8 one. The system has built in support for many, many languages. The app needs to be written with localization in mind, yes, but once the localized strings are tagged as such, you only need to translate the messages and put them in their appropriate directories. Just look at all the specific localizations for Safari, for example. These people dont need access to the code, just the localized.strings file.
Here's what I've heard on the street, and I could be highly inaccurate, but here it is anyway:
Some weeks ago, CNet came out with an article on localization, using Rwanda as an example.
Within a day or two, Microsoft had reps in that country, and offered the government all the MS software it wanted at $2 (US equiv) a CD. Also, resellers would get a sweet deal, to either increase profits there, or lower the cost of computers.
So, news of providing hooks to make locally localized versions seems natural. Microsoft isn't stupid, and it isn't sleeping either. These are decidedly tactical moves.
You can look at it this way, also: Competition between Linux and MSoft is resulting in a boon to poor countries: much cheaper software.
Having said that, it's certainly a start. I think we will see Microsoft, and other proprietary software vendors, forced to provide localisation in the future, to compete with Open-Source software which enables this.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Ever tried Office on Mac OS X? If you want to use Unicode, better fire up TextEdit, the free Apple-written app, because Office won't let you use Unicode characters.