Defining Globalization and Localization

Microsoft has hundreds of for-sale and freely available software applications, and the company makes a lot of money worldwide providing these software products to consumers. Most of their products are developed in the United States, written by programmers who speak mainly English, directed by technical leads and product managers who make decisions in English, marketed by a sales team that plans out campaigns in English, and dogged by competitors and detractors who blast the motives and business practices behind each product in English. So how is it possible that Microsoft can sell software to non-English speakers around the globe?

The key lies in the globalization and localization of their products. Sure, Microsoft or any other company could develop distinct yet identical products, each in a different language, and sell them in the appropriate markets. But that would be expensive and time consuming. Instead, they write a single program, and then enhance it with language- and culture-specific features.

Globalization is the process of preparing software so that it can be easily adjusted for each language and culture market. No foreign terms are added to software during the globalization process. Instead, the developers design the application so that all relevant English (in my case) terms and American cultural elements (such as currency displays in U.S. dollars) can be quickly and easily replaced by foreign substitutes, all without impacting the core software elements.

Windows applications have traditionally used resources to keep applications globally generic. Resources contain text strings, images, and other non-code elements that are replaced at runtime based on the active language and culture of the operating system. On a German-language system, the application loads its German-language resources (if available) and displays them instead of the default resources. The .NET Framework continues to use resources for this purpose, although it enhances resource development through XML-based resource files and tools.

Localization adds the actual non-native language and culture elements to an application. It is in this step that, say, English-language form labels get translated into Swahili, or some other target language. Visual Studio lets you localize an application within the development environment itself, or through external tools that translators who have no access to the application source code can use.

The good news for .NET developers is that Microsoft pretty much took care of the globalization part for you. You mainly need to focus on localizing your application. Your local community college offers foreign language instruction in a dozen or so languages, so I'll let you choose your first localization target.