Global by Design

Microsoft has played a major role helping to establish Unicode as a global standard.

Microsoft first migrated to Unicode for its Windows 2000 operating system. In doing so, it cleared the way for faster development of global software. It also allows users to more easily share documents that includes multiple languages and scripts.

This Microsoft article details why Microsoft upgraded to the latest version of Unicode for Vista, coming to a computer near you, and how this will benefit developers. In short, the benefits of doing so include the ability to support a few more languages, enhance security and collation, and support internationalized domain names (something I’ll be writing more about in months ahead).

It’s nice to see Microsoft upgrading to 5.0, as this will prod other software makers to do the same, although most no longer need much prodding.

• Software in Emerging Markets
• Unicode Turns 5.0 Today
• Slouching Towards Unicode
• New Microsoft Globalization Resources
• Translating .com: It’s Not So Easy
• Globalization Moves Up Microsoft Feature List