"Several recent business reports on the wireless market forecast revenues in excess of US$100 billion over the next three years. Not everyone will profit from this new "gold rush".

Several recent business reports on the wireless market (IDC, Allied Business, Sapient…) forecast revenues in excess of US$100 billion over the next three years, more than half of which are for Europe alone. Although even more audacious projections can be found, these figures sound reasonable, provided you concede that within the next few years, wired communications will gradually be replaced by wireless communications, as soon as outstanding issues such as frequency attribution and transmission security are dealt with. Wireless data transfer can be seen as a cogent extension of the Internet. In the last five years, the Internet has largely contributed to making human communication and interaction faster, more mobile and more global. Consequently, the idea that wireless communication may well replace wired communication in many areas would seem to be acceptable.

Today, wireless technology is still emerging. Like any new technology built on real demand, it offers exciting challenges to all actors involved. The initial experience of those who have participated in localizing wireless applications these last two years has established some basic guidelines that will help to avoid past mistakes and to plan and work more efficiently in terms of time and budget.

First, let us draw the picture. Wireless applications cover i-phones, interactive TV, music, games, m-commerce and e-procurement. Wireless hardware covers a vast range of uses, including mobile phones, PDAs, wireless networks, not to mention a wide variety of accessories. Each domain will come with additional branches, specifications and, in many instances, different standards. In order for this article to provide useful information for industrial actors such as project managers, developers, technical writers and localizers, we will confine the examples described to handheld devices, with some side- links on related products.

The localization of wireless applications implies all the usual facets of localization, but here they are far more accentuated, and some of the issues that arise are new.
There are three main differences that will cascade to further particularities:

• Wireless technology is very recent.
• Mobile communication devices are small.
• The wireless market potential is huge.

New technology

The current state of wireless technology is similar in many ways to the early stages of any other emerging IT industry of the past, such as PCs in the 60/70s, networking in the late 70s, or the Internet and mobile phones in the 90s.

First similarity: there are lots of new actors. Some are rather small and new to the international market, which explains why they are not yet familiar with the conditions inherent in industrial production. As far as localization is concerned, many of them have no experience of internationalization and are oblivious to the most basic localization requirements.

The second similarity concerns the emergence of new methods, programming languages and development tools, some of which eventually evolve into standards. Certain widely used standards (KVM, WAP/WML) already reveal serious limitations, thereby reducing their potential life cycle.

Since wireless technology is still in the initial dynamic development phase, implementing technical innovations as quickly as possible and making constant improvements are vital factors. Indeed, this technology evolves at such a pace that products are co nstantly threatened with being obsolete before they even hit the market.

These ongoing changes require a high degree of flexibility on behalf of all the actors involved. Many of the numerous emerging standards are still competing over economic, geographic, and cultural issues. Manufacturers and developers will nonetheless have to comply with certain standards if they want to successfully market their products. This implies keeping a watchful eye on technological, economic and political events, better anticipating major changes and adapting quickly when necessary.

A third similarity with previous technological breakthroughs, but one that is even more pronounced in the wireless world, is the fact that development cycles have become extremely short. In extreme situations, the clear distinction between the development and production cycles will vanish, whereby both will overlap or even run in parallel.

Since everyone is always delayed at all stages of the development-production process, the pressure on the last actor in the production chain - the localizer - is proportionally accentuated. Add to this the large number of third party suppliers spread throughout the world and you get a rather complex situation for all involved. Technical writers already working almost in parallel to development are constantly forced to revise their work, while half-tested software that doesn't match the online or printed documentation – or even the hardware - will be released for localization.

Mobile devices

Wireless devices are des igned for mobile end-users. However, mobile users do not necessarily buy their PDA to use it in the traffic jam on the way to the office or while walking down the street; mobile people simply want to be free to use their devices wherever they are.

The headache already suffered by laptop manufacturers and application editors facing multiple national and regional standards is simply amplified with wireless products. The reasons are not only the numerous competing wireless device and communication standards, the wide variety of development standards or the economic and sometimes political battles going on: with wireless products, manufacturers enter into some highly sensitive areas such as national security and military interests. Radio transmission in general, the attribution and use of frequencies, certain communication protocols, and the encryption required for wireless transmission in particular still represent disputed terrain.

Consequently, local or regional (EEC, EFTA…) legislation and regulations will need to be taken into account.
While the prospect of global worldwide hardware and software standards for wireless products sounds unrealistic, major manufacturers of wireless products more or less voluntarily restrict their markets to the more easily accessible geographic and economic areas of North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. The reasons not only lie in the difficulties encountered faced with local standards or even restrictions; this situation is also due to a lack of infrastructure needed for efficient wireless transmission in the rest of the world, together with the fact that Telcos are obviously not overzealous to invest in these regions.

For once, Europe may even get a head start with this new technology. Experts foresee the European market being open to mobile data transfer, partly due to the domination of European Telcos over the Internet players. The situation is reversed in North America, due to a comparatively poor infrastructure on the one hand, and the domination of Internet players over Telecom operators on the other hand.

Small devices

Wireless products, more than traditional wired IT products, are expected to appeal to a large public of non-professional end-users. This raises new challenges for developers and localizers: how to provide user- friendly access to new technology with a dramatically reduced screen and storage space.

The comparatively small size of wireless devices (small screens and restricted storage space) forces manufacturers to redesign their development specifications and processes completely. Applications have to be as light as possible – a real revolution compared to the ever-growing applications of recent years that take advantage of seemingly endless traditional computer resources.

Wireless applications are mostly developed using light development languages (e.g., Java, XML or derived languages).
Proprietary file formats, although easier for developers, must be avoided and software must be Unicode-enabled. If improperly internationalized (text embedded in code), the software may reveal itself to be difficult to localize. XML-based online help with embedded HTML, JavaScript or other objects containing localizable text will not always be properly recognized by localization tools, and code may even be broken or wrongly converted.

Among the traditional internationalization/localization issues amplified by wireless applications, the problem of space probably represents the biggest concern. While native English developers and technical writers frequently underestimate the space required by other languages to express the same thing, the tiny screens on wireless devices often make localization extremely difficult. To avoid truncated or off-screen text, or to fit options and menu items into such a small space, reformulations and abbreviations are frequently necessary. If all else fails, icons may even be used instead of text.

Huge market potential

The enormous technological and financial prospects offered by the wireless market have attracted many existing and new IT industry players. Major IT companies have also started to take a keen interest in the wireless business and, naturally, everyone is out to get the biggest share.

Given the vast potential of the European wireless market, the reasonable number of constraints due to limited required standards, not to mention the excellent infrastructure, high living standards and purchase power of European users, many manufacturers will undoubtedly set their sights on this market.

The good news for LSPs (localization service providers) is the increased demand for localized applications and content on the European market. Besides the fact that localization is a legal obligation for consumer goods marketed in Europe, most non- English-speaking consumers would have an insufficient command of the language to use their devices for more sophisticated applications.

The bad news is the relatively small revenue that LSPs can expect from this market. The current volume-based returns enjoyed by LSPs are simply not attainable from the highly challenging, low-volume projects associated with wireless devices or applications. When localizing these notoriously unfinished products, which often involves enduring inexperienced players under great pressure and correcting frequent errors that escaped earlier tests, localization companies will have to find a new way to do business without losing money.

Avoiding drawbacks

The localization of wireless applications or documentation for wireless devices is clearly rather particular. This extremely fast-moving market, together with the need to cooperate with a number of third party suppliers entails serious issues such as consistency, coordination and timing. The large amount of changes, sometimes involving complete revisions during the late development stages – or even during the localization process – lead to unpredictable schedules. And despite all of this, the product release date can't be changed.

Developers should at least consult basic localization specifications and recommendations such as the LISA primer for localization of mobile devices (written by Shailendra Musale). All actors involved should always plan, develop or write with localization in mind.

To test the product's aptitude for the European market, a pseudo-translation into German or Finnish, or even a localized prototype of the user interface in these two languages, which have the longest words and the highest text expansion, will avoid serious issues at later stages such as repeated testing, delays and budget overruns. Thorough testing during development also avoids wasted time and money at a later stage.

A close collaboration with localization consultants or your chosen localization vendor at a very early stage in the product development process will help to avoid many serious last minute issues.

Hans-Günther Höser, Managing Director of WH&P.