Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!ericbr
From: ericbr@microsoft.UUCP (Eric Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Internationalization of Software?
Message-ID: <6215@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jul 89 20:53:44 GMT
References: <4380@druhi.ATT.COM> <622@chyde.uwasa.fi>
Reply-To: ericbr@microsoft.UUCP (Eric Brown)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 22

In article <622@chyde.uwasa.fi> ts@chyde.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) writes:
>I do not have comments on the list that ensued, so it is not
>included.  But why (quite seriously) should a program and
>documentation be translated? Anything that TRULY needs translation
>is very country specific anyway, and would not easily be produced in
>another country (to give an example: program for calculating
>personal taxes in Finland.  And a counter example: Norton utilities,
>would it sell better in Dutch in Holland.) So why the language
>translation? Maybe there are good arguments for it. 
>

Well, many "horizontal" applications (spreadsheets, for example) tend to
sell quite well in many countries.  However, these countries have
differing standards about how times and dates are formatted, not to
mention different currency symbols.  Internationalization is far more
than translating the documentation and the strings in the program; it's
supporting multiple currency formats (with 1992 approaching, many
countries will want to have dollars, pounds, francs, and what have you
all in the same spreadsheet...), etc.

Eric.
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