Microsoft Global Readiness: Diverse cultures. Many languages. One world. Part 2

Monday, October 27, 2014
I recently heard about a study looking at how newborns may already be familiar with the sounds of their native language at birth, and may even cry in melodic patterns consistent with those sounds. An affiliation to language and culture would thus be present from the beginning, and become core to who we are. Similarly, research suggests that language profoundly influences how people see their world: not just how we talk, but how we think and relate to concepts such as time, space, and causality—among other notions. At the same time, in this world of technology, services, and cloud connectivity, there are no borders around our communication; it's global in nature, while locally experienced. Even if a product is originally intended for a single market, it's smart to build it so that it can be customized for other markets in the future. To be successful in diverse markets means adapting products to local requirements and expectations, while maintaining standards for global acceptability. Customer experience within a market should be consistent across offerings, though this can be a challenge, given the broad range of microsoft's portfolio. The microsoft Global Readiness team does not do this work alone. There is a company-wide community of experts in the topics of Global Readiness (for example, language or internationalization engineering). microsoft also benefits from its diverse and global workforce. We are a multi-lingual, multi-g ...

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