Internationalization

Aside from the language component, internationalization is one of the most important aspects of globalization. It  is the process of designing and developing a product that is locale-neutral and localizable. A product that is not internationalized will cost almost as much to localize as it did to create. Worse yet, such a product may not even be localizable. A Windows application that contains hard-coded assumptions about units of measurement, number and date formats, and many other factors, will not be acceptable, and may not even run if regional and/or language settings do not match the source. In addition, an application that mixes text with code, makes assumptions about the structure of language based on the source language of the application (spacing, concatenation of text, capitalization, sorting, ..) can take several times longer to localize and may result in incorrect translations when compared to a product that is properly internationalized.

We have one of the most experienced teams of internationalization engineers who will help you to avoid very expensive mistakes all the way from the design to the testing phases. In addition, if your product is already developed, we can work with your development team to examine and re-engineer your code, giving you a new properly internationalized code base to work from. Our ultimate goal in offering this service is to help you reduce your cost and reduce your turnaround time to enable your team to focus on the core development of the products.

We believe that many of the services associated with localization (localization engineering, graphics, and project management) can be greatly reduced if your product is properly internationalized. 

The internationalization process involves the following steps, depending on whether the application in question is new or existing:

For existing applications, re-engineering is required. The typical process is:

• Study existing source codes, design and system architecture
• Identify areas that require I18N
• Propose changes to existing design
• Implementation
• Integration Testing (based on existing or newly developed test specs)
• Support and Maintenance

For applications that have not been built, the typical process is:

• Analyze and provide internationalization training
  • Feasibility Study
  • Study of design and functional specs and system architecture
  • Identification of potential I18N issues
• Provide alternative solution(s)
• Specify design changes
• Implement solution
• Develop test specs
• Conduct integration testing