Introduction
My background is recently in Software but I have
worked in engineering and publishing localisation
Depending on the industry you can be at different
stages of development
Global economy is right now is going through
significant change
Looking for the next big thing
Short development cycles - RAD
24 x 7 development & testing using multiple, multi
location teams
Be First Only & Best!
To win in any market it helps to be:
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First or
Only or
Best
or all three! (dream on)
In reality being first and best gives you the
strongest chance to win in a market.
Its about creating a special position for your
company in any market.
Wave or Life Cycle theory
Phases of life cycle of most businesses
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Innovation
Investment
Management
Competition
Comoditisation
The big bucks are made by phase 3
After that the margins start to drop
In the end - deep pockets often win
Where is Localisation today?
It varies company by company
But somewhere between Competition and
Comoditisation
You can enter a market at this stage but it is
much tougher unless you own a niche
The future lies in Localisation "services" and a
much wider array of engineering/test work
McKinsey Global Survey of
Business Executives
7300 Executives around the world believe that the
global economy has improved over the past six
months, but many think the improvement will level off
during the next six. Also the hunt for talent and the
sustainability of consumer spending are also
significant issues.
Executives regard outsourcing as beneficial, .. Asia is
considered the region with the most promising growth
prospects in the upcoming year .. expect that the pace
of merger activity will continue to increase.
Merrill Lynch report:
The next big thing - Process Outsourcing
The definition of the IT industry will be expanded. Today vendors
fight over the customer's IT budget. In the future, customers' costs
of goods and expense lines will become available to IT vendors
through process outsourcing.
Technology + Industry Expertise = Less Labor Intensity
What are providers doing today..
Localisation providers supply to clients:
Project management
Globalisation technology for content
Localisation/engineering/testing for
ƒ Software
ƒ Web applications
GILT
Most commentators now see our business as
GILT
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Globalisation,
Internationalisation,
Localisation
Translation
You can in fact see beyond that ƒ broad language/locale/cultural services
List of some additional Language/Cultural
Services that can be outsourced
Content Creation/Management
Technical Writing
Terminology Management
Web Globalisation
Producing Multimedia in multilingual environments
Testing - (as described elsewhere)
Linguistic Quality testing
Multilingual Product marketing material
Multicultural Brand Management
Cultural Assessments
Other things to look........
Increased content quality
Lower content volume
Maximise readiness of content for localisation
New markets due to open standards/ open
source
You should not underestimate local knowledge
- the OS, Cultural, Technical
So what does that mean...
Localisation remains a key part of any global
business strategy
BUT it is not the only part
It needs to demonstrate that it has a first and
best culture
There will remain a very significant number of
clients coming into the market for the first time
looking for solutions
There are still big numbers of clients using
older business models due to "cost"
So what does this mean....
At the end of the day the majority of the business will
move - the 80:20 rule applies
Product Develop cycles used to be 18mth + for major
releases
Now there down to 8 months!
New tools help but we also need ...
Better and faster & reliable processes
Processes can be outsourced
Speed is of the essence...
Turn around is now the most critical factor
Many cite the example of 6 Sigma - an
excellent quality process for established
products where you want to drive down costs
and raise efficiency
You can loose out to competitors who
innovate while you try to put a complex
process in place.
Its horses for courses.
Look for the gaps....
Not every client will be staffed (or want to be)
to cover all content and locale issues
Even the largest client companies will
outsouce (or be oursource providers
themselves)
Smaller companies will outsouce even more
Know your client needs - anticipate them!
Rapid Application Development
or RAD development tools
RAD is working on extending the Eclipse platform,
which is supported by an open-source community for
multi-vendor software tool integration. Using Eclipsebased tools, developers can integrate tasks easily and
quickly to improve the quality of applications and time
to market.
RAD tools enable users to quickly build applications
and application templates, using visual editors, without
having to program the code.
Eclipse
Open source open platform for tool integration
Built by an open community of tool providers
Common public license - royalty free source code & world wide
redistribution rights
Ultimate flexibility and control over software technology
Eclipse based tools give developers freedom of choice in a
ƒ multi-language, multi-platform, multi-vendor environment
ƒ Is written in Java with extensive plug-in construction toolkits and
examples.
ƒ Deployed on Linux, QNX, OSx and Windows based systems.
A full description of the Eclipse community and white papers
documenting the design and use of the Eclipse Platform are available
at http://www.eclipse.org
Who make up Eclipse
Selection of members:
ƒ Borland, IBM, Rational Software3, Red Hat,
SuSE, Sybase, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP,
Oracle,Catalyst Systems, SAP, teamstudio
Ericsson, Intel, etc.,
24 X 7 Cycles
Short RAD cycles demand quick turnarounds
Work is spread over many locations
ƒ Asia, Europe, America etc.
Work gets passed from one team to the next
Common access to builds and deployments
ƒ every team can work on the same task held in a
common area.
Globalisation Testing
Not just about UI testing
there are many other services that can be provided:
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functionality
usability
System testing and interoperability
performance
scalability
Testing Phases
Unit test
Function test
System Test
Performance
test
Globalisation
Verification Test
Translation
Verification
test
Service test
Integration
test
Globalisation Verification
Globalisation (G11N)
ƒ The proper design and execution of systems,
software, services, and procedures so that one
instance of software, executing on a single
server or end user machine, can process
multilingual data, and present data culturally
correctly in a multicultural environment.
ƒ Ensuring that the product under test is
internationalised and localisable.
Internationalisation verification
Internationalisation (I18N)
ƒ Process of producing a product that is independent of
any particular language, script, culture, and coded
character set.
ƒ Making sure the product will work in the required locales
prior to localisation. This means for example that the
English version needs to be able to handle Japanese text
when being used by someone in Korea.
Internationalisation is sometimes referred to as
international enabling or NLS.
Localisation verification
Localisation (L10N)
ƒ The process of modifying products or services
to account for differences in distinct markets.
ƒ This usually means ensuring that the product
under test is able to be translated without
reduction of functionality. Other example of
localisation would be adapting rules to meet
local regulations and business practices such
as sales tax calculations etc..
Single exe / Localization Pack
Single program one executable for multiple locales
with standardised approach to working with different
sets of locale-specific program data.
LPs contains Program data that is specific to a
language in a country or region
Also includes user visible text. May have date and
time format, currency format, number format, collating
information, and text layout information.
A product needs to be able to support multiple
localisation packs simultaneously so that it can
support users from different parts of the world at the
same time, and data from multiple locales.
Types of Localization Packs
Installable - only one locale can be installed and used
at a time.
Pluggable - multiple pluggable localization packs can
be used by a single installed copy of an executable
Run-time pluggable - new or changed localization
packs can be accessed by the main program without
requiring a program restart.
On-Demand - new or changed localization packs can
be located by a running program or platform without
user intervention - administrator authorisation may be
required