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Microsoft Plans to Create Local Language Software

Posted by simoniker on from the xp-language-docious dept.

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.'

38 of 480 comments (clear)

  1. open source challenges?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please, like it or not, MS is already light years ahead of OSS in terms of localization and supporting foreign languages. We've got a lot of catching up to do before we're even in the ballpark!

    1. Re:open source challenges?? by bangular · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages. Microsoft has fought localization kicking and screaming and it wasn't until competing products were stealing this market that they have decided to respond. Consider also the fact that some governments are localizing distro's themselves and have helped the OSS community greatly. If MS had it their way the entire planet would be speaking American English.

    2. Re:open source challenges?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages.

      What version, Office 95 before Unicode? Office 2000 works just fine with Japanese text letting me enter horizontal or vertical right to left. It even came with all the fonts and IME. And it's just the normal US version.

      The localized versions have worked since the 3.x days.

    3. Re:open source challenges?? by Shados · · Score: 2, Insightful

      its a bit more than that though...to localise software, you have to do a bit more than just translate stuff... think like...some languages need to be written from right to left...need to support that... Or how you can write japanese with a qwerty keyboard by pronounciation, and it will write the kenjis for it...etc. That takes more than just a text file to translate... I dont know if thats what you meant though.

    4. Re:open source challenges?? by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages.
      Yes, it does.

      Get with the flow of the discussion, chum. Office for the Mac doesn't support right to left languages. That's a big reason why Israel's government has their ban. Of course, being adjudged a monopoly was the other reason.
      Yeah, the original poster should have been a touch more specific but....

    5. Re:open source challenges?? by davegust · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yea, and in typical volunteer FOSS fashion, of the 79 language teams, 11 have done enough work to be considered useful. Chinese and Japanese, the two most important, are only half translated.

      You can bet the 35 Office XP localizations are a bit more polished. That's what profit can do for you.

    6. Re:open source challenges?? by sbryant · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ... MS is already light years ahead of OSS in terms of localization and supporting foreign languages.

      That's not quite true. Certainly, their translated versions of Windows, Office and so on are very well done, but there's one very major problem with them: they're each separate versions.

      I want English, my wife wants German. It's not possible to install a Windows box so that we both get what we want - we have to choose one and we're stuck with it. OpenOffice is the same (both Windows and Unix versions). Other software is designed to be more flexible. - see KDE, for example.

      While I'm here: a lot of (non-Microsoft) Windows apps break language related things by hardcoding them. "Program Files" is "Programme" in German, and the "Startup" folder in the Start menu is called "Autostart". These names are dynamically available from the system, and it's annoying when badly coded programs put things in the wrong places.

      I find it interesting that Microsoft recently refused to do Hebrew and IIRC Arabic, but suddenly announces Welsh, which doesn't have as many users. They lost business to Linux because of their earlier refusal, and I'm sure that that loss, coupled with the recent KDE announcements about Niedersaechsisch has forced a rethink.

      There is a lot of work to do before OSS catches up, but there is a lot of local interest in things like translations - you don't need an IT background to get involved, which was a big barrier for many. At least one German university is actively involved in translating KDE, as part of its language studies. I'm sure that a fair amount of OSS will overtake Microsoft in this area, now that well designed frameworks are in place.

      -- Steve

  2. erm by negacao · · Score: 1, Insightful

    language packs?

    creating them now? i've already got one, it's called "Windows XP Multilingual User Interface" kit.

  3. Freeloading by chrispyman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So Microsoft is giving us the priviledge of letting us translate their products for them. For some reason I don't think this will work well commercial product. You paid for it, why should you work more? Obviously for open source, it's diffrent.

  4. What Gall by bstadil · · Score: 4, Insightful
    that government and academic developers can use to produce localized versions of the [snip] Office 2003 productivity package

    For $400 a pop you would have thought they could have done this themselves.

    --
    Help fight continental drift.
    1. Re:What Gall by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Er... as an employee of an academic institution, I really must protest.

      First, you're an insensitive clod.

      Second, the money that we get comes from a mix of payments made by students and funded legislated by the state. Neither of those sources are eager to part with their cash, and in order to earn it, the institution has to provide value.

      Part of proviing value in our case is delivering the maximum service for the smallest outlay of cash. In other words, you're damn skippy we have to pinch our pennies, often to the point of under-funding projects, begging for grant money, and underpaying the staff and faculty. This we do in the name of providing a higher education, because there's no money to be made here. Only reputations.

      The trick is to pinch the pennies in ways that appear extravegant and bold, to "show" that we're a competitive, forward-thinking institution with the future in mind.

  5. Uhhh, how is this news? by still_sick · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The MUI (Multi-Language User Interface) Pack has beena available for the US-English version of Windows for years.

    Localized versions of Windows have been available for years as well.

    Now they DARE to Localize Applications?! THOSE BASTARDS!!!

    --
    ...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
    1. Re:Uhhh, how is this news? by HalfFlat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So ah, tell me. How do I convince my Japanese version of Windows XP Home to display OS messages in English?

      The last time I tried to search for an answer, the only one I found was: buy an English version, back-up everything, install English version, restore from backup. This is a far cry from setting your LANG envvar.

      While I'm at it, I can complain that under this version of the OS, a whole bunch of English-language software seems to have uglified small fonts, sometimes to the point of illegibility.

      Oh, and how do you enter full-width katakana from the command prompt? It seems impossible. Which makes entering the localized name of the Local Area Connection tricky in netsh. (As far as I can tell, you have to cut and paste the name.)

      Not to mention the way that the IME taskbar widget regularly gets obscured by other taskbar widgets making changing input settings a pain in the neck. Microsoft's own deskswitcher application is a particular offender in this regard.

      Sure it has localization, but it doesn't appear to be especially well thought out (infamously bad translations aside), and certainly its internationalization quality leaves something to be desired.

  6. Credit where credit is due by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give them some credit where it is due. Microsoft has always pushed multi language support at every level long before OSS was a serious contender. All their OS API's support unicode, multi language versions of their OS's and many applications have been around a long time.

  7. Linux forced it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft didn't even want to support Icelandic,
    in spite of the government wanting to fund the
    whole project.

    Now, with Linux supporting all sorts of weird
    stuff like Welsh and a zillion Indian languages,
    Microsoft is losing out in places. All those
    little annoying-to-support markets add up.

    1. Re:Linux forced it. by donutello · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No. South Asian Indians are called that because the civilization was based around the Indus river valley. That is also the root for the word Hindu.

      Native Americans/Indians were called Indians because the purpose of Columbus's excursion was to discover an alternate route to India. When they got here they realized it wasn't India but decided to call it the West Indies anyway. They also realized the people here weren't Indians but called them Red Indians.

      --
      Mmmm.. Donuts
  8. Is MS 'Seeing th Light'? by femto · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It almost sounds like the begginings of a 'bazaar' development model (albeit a miniscule step in that direction).

    So, what license is to be used for these translations, written by third parties? Will Microsoft try and demand ownership, or at least commandeer a right to unlimited use of the translation?

    If it is legally possible, it would be a really interesting experiment to write a translation and release it under the GPL, then sit back and watch the reaction.

  9. Aren't they just outsourcing by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds to me like they're just outsourcing the task of translating their software to different languages to other small countries that wouldn't make it financially worth it for microsoft to do it.

  10. Isn't that backward? by YouHaveSnail · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft has announced plans for a program to help governments produce local language versions of key Microsoft applications

    Shouldn't that be the other way around? Why should governments be doing Microsoft's work? If Microsoft wants to sell in upper Mongolia, it ought to make the effort to localize its own damn software for that market.

    If you ask me, this is just one more example of Microsoft's incredible hubris.

    1. Re:Isn't that backward? by bomblaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just another example of twisted OSS thinking.

      MS is going about it in a brilliant strategic way. They realize that it is not financially worthwhile for them to do it themselves. Instead they are getting the help of user who might want to use their product.
      Right now upper Mongolia doesnt have a customised version of Linux or Windows. There is nothing to stop Upper Mongolia from creating a language pack for KDE. What MS has done is to provide an alternative to that, maybe at a lower cost.

  11. Re:Wow translating their software to other languag by DaHat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is nothing monopolistic about making your product available to as many people/organizations/governments that you can.

    Where I come from... we call this competition! You know, where different organizations tailor their products to a given market and duke it out to see who succeeds.

    --
    Help Brendan pay off his student loans
  12. Re:Good on Microsoft - mod PARENT UP by Mr+Very+Angry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, very witty PARENT ... however, it really goes to show how Open Source has really rocked the industry (especially Microsoft),

    I think this will be the first of a whole series of changes, which should be good for everyone who doesn't depend of closed IP.

  13. .net feels weak because it is not mature like java by codepunk · · Score: 1, Insightful

    These are the pains one feels when writing software using a beta version language.

    --


    Got Code?
  14. How many new security holes? by jenkin+sear · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How many new buffer overflows will all these previously fixed-length strings introduce? A zillion?

    --
    What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
  15. Re:Just translating may not be enough... by Stevyn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not necessarily, they could break it down into a really generic format that would allow others to code new grammer settings in. I don't think you need access to everything to simply change the language around. They're not going to open it up and that's their choice. They spend the money to develop it and it's their right to keep it closed. If you don't like it, then don't buy it.

  16. So, while we argue about licenses... by jarich · · Score: 2, Insightful
    While many many people debate the value of one X server's license over anothers...

    While we argue and sue each other over dinosaur mascots...

    While we debate Open Source versus Free Software versus GPL versus LGPL...

    Microsoft is adding more features to their products...

    What percentage of the desktop does MS own now? 90%? 95%?

    Wonder why? I don't.

    We could always stop majoring on the minors and make better software... but's that just me.

    --
    Agile Artisans
    1. Re:So, while we argue about licenses... by lxs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft is adding more features to their products...

      You make it sound like Microsoft is leading the pack, when in fact they are trying to catch up with the rest. All big Linux distro's have supported localisation (including the most obscure languages) for years. Mac OSX is even better in this respect, as all OSX apps support localization (you can even write your own by creating an XML file with the translated strings and adding it to the app) and uses unicode throughout, so I can just cut-and-paste Japanese text from some odd robot site from my browser into a translator and have systrans translate it for me.

      Since a large proportion of desktop users is forced to use windows, this is a step in the right direction, but don't try to spin this into MS innovation hype.

      I'll be impressed when windows comes multilingual out of the box like all sane operating systems (just choose your language at install time), or when it doesn't complain when I try to network two computers using the same build of the OS, but different language editions.

  17. Please help us increase our profits! by Starky · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I can understand the spirit of community service that inspires people to volunteer their time and resources to open source localization projects.


    But here we have a company with over $60 billion in the bank, pulling in more than $1 billion per month in pure profits, raking in unheard of profit margins on their products, and they are asking local and regional governments to provide them with gratis localization services.


    Shameful.

    --
    -- My choice of computing platform is a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom.
  18. Esperanto? Klingon? by handy_vandal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Local Language Program will provide local and regional governments with "language interface packs" ...

    Oh, so it's only "governments" that rate, hmm?

    No help for the Esperanto community, I guess.

    Though it wouldn't surprise me to find Microsoft courting the Klingon-speaking community ....

    -kgj

    --
    -kgj
  19. Just enough to hold off the competition by smiff · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Not to mention other tasks like modifying their English grammar checker to support new languages...

    Microsoft is doing this to compete with Linux. Since there aren't any decent grammar checkers for Linux, they are not going to worry about it.

  20. yeah, that sounds like a "microsoft innovation" by corban.elektrolite · · Score: 2, Insightful

    m$ really knows how to sell simple (and already established) solutions as innovative, simple because their products did neglect such needs till now. the l18n issue is soooo damn old, and everyone knows that it takes such a little effort to implement (it's mostly about externalizing strings from your source and managin' formatting objects in a centre place, like dates). it's nothing what i couldn't do with my eclpise in 5 minutes. but the average business person will still think that m$ did invent the whole thing. (which they didn't, btw)

  21. Eh.. by segfault7375 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sounds to me like they are just trying to outsource some work. Nothing comes from MS with no strings attached :)

  22. Re:Just translating may not be enough... by soullessbastard · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Probably misunderstood terminology from my old FrameMaker days. I am not a Japanese speaker myself and am unfamiliar with what it is actually called in Japanese. From the FrameMaker 5.5 manual, page 93:

    Rubi text is made up of small characters (usually kana) appearing above other text, called oyamoji. You can control the size of rubi text as well as how it is spaced and aligned with respect to its underlying oyamoji text. Your settings affect rubi text throughout a document.

    While I never used it myself, I always was struck how FrameMaker offered more control over this type of text then every other application. I never saw anything like it in any other app (including OOo!).

    ed

    (offtopic, but I wish FrameMaker was OSS as well so I could run through and Carbonize it...)

  23. Why doesn't Microsoft pay for it? by Michael+B.+Davis · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Hi,

    With all their billions in the bank, why can't they just pay for the translations? I can't believe that a government would spend resources doing translation work for Microsoft.

    Of course, M$ is going to try to get away with not having to pay for it. But I doubt governments (and of course just those of relatively low-population countries) will want to assist funding for them, seeing as how they have such a huge war chest.

    I feel confident that gov's will prefer to fund translation on Linux, and M$ will be forced to pay for the their own translation anyway, if they want to get into the market.

    --
    Cheers, Michael From sunny Toronto
  24. Re:Wow translating their software to other languag by LarsWestergren · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now throw yer tantrum kids.

    Tantrum? I'm delighted. In order to protect their monopoly on all fronts they are spreading their resources thinner and thinner in order to combat the various threats from competitors, open Source and open standards (for instance Linux, Open Office/Star Office, Java, XML, Mobile platforms) This means loss of focus, low quality, delayed releases. And hopefully their downfall.

    --

    Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

  25. Re:Just translating may not be enough... by soullessbastard · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think they are well aware of what it takes.

    Just because they're aware doesn't necessarily mean they take their own knowlege into account. Does Messenger support vertical text for Japanese (or AIM, or iChat for that matter...I honestly don't know)? Is the user interface assumed for these apps even usable for vertical text input and display? I know my IM text input line is at the bottom of the chat window and near assumes top to bottom text ordering.

    It's easy for programmers who know no language aside from English or a Romance language to make these fundamental assumptions about language orientation. Nothing aside from changing the code or design of the program is going to help.

    Mozilla still doesn't support the standard

    At least Mozilla provides concerned governments or localization teams the source code to the program so they can try to fix the problem. The potential for full localization is present in OSS apps even if not yet fully realized.

    ed

  26. Microsoft feels the heat in Malaysia by arclynx · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Few month ago, Microsoft released Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) language pack for Windows XP and Office 2003, a clear fight against Open Source in Malaysia after they saw we do some demonstration of Red Hat, GNOME, KDE, Abiword, Nano, OpenOffice and others in Malay language during LinuxWorld Malaysia 2003.

    We used the local language support fact to persuade our government to use Open Source. Now, Microsoft feel the heat and tried to pursue the same path as ours!

    Shame to them! They are really a cheap imitator. ;)

    Me - Fedora, Mandrake, Nano and Abiword translator

  27. Re:Wow translating their software to other languag by rifter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What antimonopolistic evil behaviour!

    Actually customizing their products to different markets. UN FRICKIN BELIEVABLE.

    Now throw yer tantrum kids.

    Actually it is likely a smokescreen. Microsoft has long touted their localization efforts while in reality avoiding numerous locales even when they have lots of customers in those locales. In the case of Hebrew, they declared there would never be Hebrew language versions of their software even though the Israeli government offered to pay for the development and ultimately even to supply the developers if that is what it took. Microsoft said NO.

    Now they are claiming they will work with local governments in localizing MS Software? I will believe it when I see it.