With the development of network technology and e-business, our blueprint is growing
sophisticated: Instantly expose our services to customers on a global basis.
Globalization, one of the hot topics in IT industry, can bring on your e-business
world-class fame and economic interest.
However, globalization is in no way equal to locating an e-business product on a global
network, or translating it into multiple languages. Instead, the essence of globalization
lies in fulfilling the language and cultural expectations from users around the world.
Once integrated with your products and services, such enablement would undoubtedly
win understanding and appreciation throughout customers.
What is globalization?
In traditional practice, the conversion of a product to another language version includes
two steps: internationalization and localization.
Internationalization means an application is designed and developed conforming to
requirements on multiple languages and cultural conventions, which include the
separation of text and code, as well as the separation of culture-related code and basic
application.
In the process of localization, apart from the translation of text content, culture-related
settings, such as the sequence of name and address, are created and saved to
language-specific file.
The premise of localization is to provide different language versions to a specific
application. However, an Internet-based application may be accessed by worldwide
users at the same time. Those who speak different languages with diverse cultures
behind require a system supporting multiple languages and cultural conventions
simultaneously.
Globalization focuses on appropriate design and execution of the system, software,
service, and steps. The system therefore can support multilingual data simultaneously
when executed on the server or client end, and provide locale-specific information
concerning cultural conventions.
One of the most challenges confronting globalization products is how to satisfy users’
diverse language and cultural demands with interactive interface, yet at the same time,
minimizing the complexity of system design, production, execution, and maintenance.
Improper development toward globalization may be both costly and time-consuming
not only on product translation, but even worse on tuning, execution, as well as
maintenance.
The dependency of Internet-based application also challenges developers on how to
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exchange data between globalization and non-globalization products during designing
and developing phase.
Already a giant in the field of e-business, IBM remains its leadership position in the
evolution from internationalization and localization toward globalization. Located in
Shanghai China, IBM Globalization Certification Laboratory is a vigorous department
made up of more than 50 passionate and originative engineers. We have been devoted
to the examination of IBM flagship products to ensure their proper behaviors and
interoperability from a globalization perspective based on a single or an integration of
e-business patterns, thus accumulating large amount of valuable experiences.
Up till now, we’ve developed several globalization-featured Web sites as Global Bank,
Global Bookstore, and Global PC Marketplace. Global Travel Shanghai is one of the
latest Internet-based demonstrations intended to show worldwide visitors around
Shanghai, and acquaint them with this fast-growing city.
Global Travel Shanghai features the basic requirements and technologies of global
e-business, covering features of globalization products, concept, architecture, and
process of Web Services, machine translation, and other emerging technologies.
Global Travel Shanghai demonstrates globalization capabilities based on the
integration of Extended Enterprise Pattern and Application Integration Pattern. It
provides multilingual travel services, introducing the whole world a fantastic city —
Shanghai.
On the homepage, the temperature scale and date format conform to the convention of
the user locale. The Celsius scale is commonly used in China, while the Fahrenheit
scale is generally employed in the United States. Chinese users prefer the date in order
of “year/month/day”, while in the United States the preferred date format is
“month/day/year”.
The Language Selection List displays language names in their corresponding languages.
Users can visit our Global Travel Shanghai in any languages selected from the list.
On the Registration page, the name format, address format, and the order of name and
title follow the convention of the user’s locale. The sorting of city names is arranged in
language-specific dictionary order. Moreover, the address format will change with the
conversion of countries in the address section. (For example, in China the address
information is presented in order of country, city, street, house number, while in the
United States the order is just the opposite.)
The function of flight search and booking demonstrates the following globalization
features:
Dictionary sorting of city names (Chinese city names are arranged in the order of pinyin,
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and in Europe and America, city names are sequenced according their initial letters.),
Calendar format (The calendar for a Chinese regards Sunday as the beginning of a week,
while some Europeans prefer to regard Monday as the first day of a week.),
Metrology (Although most countries adopt metric measurement, the United States still
use British measurement, such as mile.),
And time zone (Countries are located in different time zones. Global Travel Shanghai,
for the convenience of users, provides the local time of departure place and destination
as departure time and arrival time of the flight respectively.)
(Similarly, ticket prices are also displayed in both US dollars and the local currency of
departure place.).
The development and launch of globalization products are undoubtedly of great values
to our customers.
In traditional practice, the development and testing of the English version preceded that
of other language versions. With every new language added, the development and
testing cycle of the product must be repeated. However, the single-version source code
of a globalization product significantly cuts the time spent on the development and
testing of a multilingual product, meanwhile reducing the cost. Upon request of adding
a new language, all that needs to do is to translate the additional text content.
Globalization products avoid the time warp and provision of language-specific servers
that are required during the deployment of traditional multilingual products.
Specifically, the single-version software supporting multiple languages adds great
flexibility to its launch, and reduces time and cost as well.
The support, maintenance, and upgrade of a traditional multilingual product could turn
into a rather complicated and costly project. However, compared with traditional
practice, the single-version source code of a globalization product simplifies the
management process, consolidates different language versions, secures and speeds the
support, maintenance, and upgrade of a product, and slashes the development cost.
Apart from the globalization technology applied to realize multilingual Web pages, the
system structure of Global Travel Shanghai follows the basic architecture of Web
Services.
TCP/IP made Internet possible; HTTP established the groundwork of World Wide Web;
now as an emerging set of interface standards, Web Services is likewise accepted as the
next wave of information industry renovation.
Instead of building fixed but limited connection between service providers and service
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requestors, Web Services enables a service requestor to discover all the service
providers from a service registry at runtime, interact dynamically with them, and
invoke their services. The dynamic interaction stops with the termination of the service
invoking. A service provider may, at the same time, play the role of a service requestor
in another Web Service.
Let’s take an example of hotel reservation. Without Web Services, a customer may
have to contact over ten hotels to find a hotel with a satisfactory location, price, and
check-in date. Thanks to Web Services, after the customer inputs his request, the
system will automatically search all the registered hotels in its service registry center no
matter there’re 100 or over 1000, and return the most appropriate results. The whole
process proceeds automatically at the back end.
Web Services exposes all the registered service providers to customers and their
business partners, thus not only providing customers more choices, but offering greater
business opportunities to service providers. Individuals or companies on the service
chain enjoy less cost and higher efficiency with the help of Web Services that results in
infinite social benefits.
Web Services have been leading the trend in the field of technology.
Besides human-translated Web pages, Global Travel Shanghai also brings you
machine-translated pages. We employ IBM WebSphere Translation Server to
undertake this tough task.
On the basis of globalization and Web Services technology described above, we’re
considering integrating more IBM technologies into our future globalization products
and demos, such as the support to voice recognition, image recognition, mobile phones,
and other wireless products.
For example, users can access our Web site for inquiring about Shanghai’s sight spots
through mobile phones or PDA.
If you’re interested in the design and development of global e-business, our Global
Travel Shanghai tutorial could illustrate to you a more detailed picture of the
globalization elements realized within and the implementation process from a
technology prospective.
If you’d like to, please bring your applications or products over to our IBM
Globalization Certification Laboratory. We would help extend your services to
global-based customers.
Machine Voiceover:
Welcome to Global Travel Shanghai Demo. Please specify your required service:
attraction introduction, hotel inquiry, flight inquiry, transport, or hospital.
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Human Voiceover:
Attraction introduction.
Machine Voiceover:
Please specify your interested spots: historical attractions, scenic attractions,
sightseeing, museums, galleries, religious places, parks, shopping centers, or theatres.
Human Voiceover:
Sightseeing.
Machine Voiceover:
We will introduce you famous sightseeing spots in Shanghai. Please choose your
interested spots from the Bund, Huangpu River, People’s Square, the Old City, Pudong
New Area.
Human Voiceover:
Pudong New Area.
Machine Voiceover:
Please press the key to download the voice introduction to Pudong New Area. If you
prefer a language other than Chinese, please specify a language.
Human Voiceover:
Japanese.
If you can make it here, you can make it everywhere.
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