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SILICON VALLEY LOCALIZATION FORUM |
Software Forum: International Software SIG
Minutes from April 15, 1996 meeting by Charlie Pfefferkorn
Concurrent Multilingual Software Releases
Are you distributing, or planning to distribute, your SW products into expanding international markets? What is required to succeed? International competition is forcing companies to modify their SW development process to support simultaneous release of multilingual versions of their products. At the April meeting of the SEF International Software SIG, Ms. Tiziana Perinotti, TGP Consulting founder and Localization evangelist, examined the implications this change implies for your company. Common problems include improper division of responsibilities, schedule inconsistencies, third party contracts which lack international requirements, poor selection of translators, inadequate international testing, and corporate information flows broken at many levels.
Ms. Perinotti repeatedly stressed the importance of team work, planning and communication. Whether you are new to international distribution, or a long term veteran, you need to periodically reevaluate you development and distribution process. You need to assess what is working and what is broken. What are the implications of your competitors simultaneously releasing their multilingual software products? How can you improve your development process?
Ms. Perinotti feels strongly that the development of successful international products starts at the "brainstorming level." What multilingual features are required? How do they impact the overall architecture? Redesigning the architecture of a product to include multilingual features after the fact is difficult, expensive and time consuming. If a product is properly designed, multilingual features can be added as the product evolves. The development of an effective development process requires careful thought and planning. Ms. Perinotti shared her experiences with different development approaches and their associated benefits and limitations. She explained why companies, like Microsoft, have adopted a unified team approach to developing products, after encountering serious problems using separate teams for the U.S. products and the international products.
A successful development process requires defining the roles of the various players whether they are software developers, localizers, translators, marketers, distributors, or managers. Realistic written procedures, schedules and budgets need to be developed. The schedules and budgets must allow adequate testing and customer feedback, especially for multi-culture, multilingual features. The development team's need for specific international skills must be identified early. Whether the skills are provided by company staff, consultants or external agencies, the proper qualification, selection and integration into the team is essential. The cheapest translator or localizer may be very expensive over the long term.
Providing adequate tools is also important. The tools discussed by Ms. Perinotti included configuration management tools, resource editors, translation assistance tools and testing software. If external organizations are used, it is important to define what tools will be used and who will provide them. Incompatible tools can cause lots of unnecessary headaches. The development of translation and localization glossaries are critical in developing successful international products. Most large companies develop their own proprietary glossaries. It is critical to identify who will provide the glossary, how will it be updated, who owns it, and what rights do others have to use it. Make sure to verify the correctness of the glossary early in the development process. If any of the internationalization and localization activities are done overseas, one must be aware of the local laws, especially with respect to intellectual property, termination of employees and the use of contractors. In many foreign countries, the translator or localizer owns the copyright of the derived work. Be sure to get competent international legal assistance, if you plan or doing development work overseas.
If you want additional information (checklists, software tools, publications, books and names of organizations), visit Ms. Tiziana Perinotti's web site:
Charlie Pfefferkorn, Crystal Media 2911 Agua Vista Drive, San Jose, CA 95132-2103 Tel&fax: (408) 923-7570 charliep@crystal-media.com