The following is a list NTSh-A goals for Ukrainian local of Microsoft products with brief comments sent to Microsoft

List of NTSh-A goals sent to Microsoft. June 02, 2006

The development of Ukrainian versions of Microsoft’s products is open, transparent and inclusive.

Open to input from Ukrainian scholars.

Transparent as to who is developing what.

Inclusive: include faculty of Ukrainian Universities, such as, Kyiv-Mohyla (Kyiv), Taras Shevchenko (Kyiv), Ivan Faranko (Lviv), and members of Shevchenko Scientific Society (Lviv, NY, Donetsk) in some aspects of development. Even just including these groups in beta testing would be a step in the right direction.

I’m certain that Redmond would welcome some of these suggestions. The problem is that messages from Redmond to Moscow get lost in translation. If we can achieve the first goal it would facilitate achieving the remaining goals.

Improve the current version of Windows XP Ukrainian Interface Pack.

The current MS product Windows XP Ukrainian Interface Pack, which was developed at the MS facility in Moscow, has serious deficiencies with regard to the use of Ukrainian language and terminology. This problem was considered at a conference of experts in this field, from various scientific and government institutions in Ukraine and abroad. Please take a look at some of the documents of this conference, which was held at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, May 2003. SEE http://www.shevchenko.org/MatPhysTech/projects.htm .

Develop an Interface Pack based on the English version.

The political climate in Ukraine has changed substantially since the 2003 meeting in Lviv, resulting in a political and economic shift toward Europe and the US. This could be the incentive to support the development of, if not a full version, an Interface Pack based on the English version. Microsoft has done this for Serbian Cyrillic – Released 6/18/03, based on Windows XP, English Edition http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0db2e8f9-79c4-4625-a07a-0cc1b341be7c&displaylang=srb . An English based Interface Pack will be beneficial to Ukraine’s economic future. Developing an English based pack will be beneficial to Microsoft as well. Ukraine is a technologically advanced country where talent is still inexpensive. If English becomes more pervasive it will be a good outsourcing destination for Microsoft and the market for Microsoft’s English based products will definitely improve.

Ukrainian as one of the language versions of Microsoft products.

Best regards,

Volodymyr Vasilaky, PhD.

Chair Information Technology

Shevchenko Scientific Society

New York, NY

USA

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Microsoft reply to the above goals:

Dear Professor Vasilaky, 8/9/2006

I would like to share with you some details of localization procedure adopted by Microsoft Corp. as well as some details of doing this project in Ukraine. Taking into consideration that this procedure should be organized in a unified and streamlined way for dozens of languages and dozens of products for each language, there is a special model for it. This model is based on engagement of the following structural units: Localization team located in Redmond (WA) and for European group of languages there is a special team located Microsoft office in Dublin (Ireland).

For each product being localized there are two vendors being hired: the first one in charge of all translational matters and the second one which is responsible for constant check of quality of localization. These vendors are selected by international localization team and local subsidiaries are not involved into their selection but are requested to share their feedback. Such a model has been selected due to two main reasons: first – to assure that the job of localization is done by institutions with best-of-breed experience on the matter, second – to help local subsidiaries to concentrate on execution of company’s mission to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential using modern information technologies – every time, at every place, on every device.

As a result of first wave of localization of Microsoft products (which started prior to the date when local office of Microsoft had been opened) Ukrainian subsidiary had collected really huge feedback of opinions, remarks and comments. All these materials had been shared with localization teams with an aim to take them into consideration when new localization projects are implemented as well as for improving current versions of localized products.

Another lesson which was learnt by Microsoft was about need to actively engage local experts into the review process. This task was implemented in different ways. First, Windows Community Glossary web-site for Ukrainian language had been opened and proceedings of Ukrainian experts (from NTSh) on the matter will be published soon as a printed edition with financial support from Microsoft. Second, localization vendors had been requested to pay attention to this project with an aim to take the results of this project into consideration when reviewing the glossaries. Third, Ukrainian Subsidiary had addressed Technical Committee 20 (On IT Terminology) of the Ukrainian State Committee of Ukraine on Consumers’ Rights Protection and Standardization as a main body in Ukraine in charge of IT terminology to make review of Windows Community Glossary and some parts of localization glossaries and make its recommendations on the matter. These recommendations as well as recommendations of NTSh group of experts headed by Prof. Bohdan Rytsar, had been very accurately reflected in the project. Fourth, in every case, when product is subject to localization, the base language had been set to English instead of Russian (as it was before). This means that in the case when due to some reasons it is impossible to localize a product in full, an English version is used for localization and non-localized parts of such product will be available in English and not in any other language.

Now, when new wave of localization is approaching its crucial stage – community checks, Ukrainian Subsidiary is in a process of negotiating massive checks and comments collection with leading experts, academics, communities etc. I would like to assure you that all institutions you mentioned in your e-mail will be engaged into this stage.

At the same time we should be aware of some limitations which occur during localization process. I would like to mention just two of them here: size of translation and versioning. The first limitation means that if in English version a predefined size of message is established than in localized version its size cannot be substantially larger that in original. The second one is about smooth transition from one version to another. Let us agree that Microsoft products are extremely complex ones and each term is associated with a set of customer’s actions and even behavioral styles. Changing this term to something completely different could raise confusion and even dissatisfaction when customer upgrades his product to the newest version. For these two reasons localization procedure has established limitations within it: to limit size of interface collocations and to limit scope of changes in interface between different versions of localized interface. In some cases these limitations could be in some contradictions with some linguistic requirements and traditions.

May I extend hope that my explanations have helped you to make your opinion on the matter.

Best regards,

Oleksandr Oriekhov

Developers & Platform Evangelism Lead

Microsoft Ukraine

e-mail: Oleksandr.Oriekhov@microsoft.com

Tel.: + 380 44 496 0310

Fax: + 380 44 496 0317

Mob.: + 380 50 3107834

Yuri Pederi

Windows Client Product Manager

Microsoft Ukraine

e-mail: ypederi@microsoft.com

Tel.: + 380 44 496 0310

Fax: + 380 44 496 0317

Mob.: + 380 67 220 6943