G7 Workshop

The European Commission organizes a

         Electronic Commerce Workshop
   G7 Project "A Global Marketplace for SMEs"
          13-14 March 1997, Brussels

As rapporteur for the Working Group Multilingualism, I prepared a
preliminary document, that it is attached to this messages (html format).
It is also at

 http://www.crpht.lu/~carrasco/g7/ 

If you want to comment, please sent mail with the above subject to

 carrasco@innet.lu

Regards
Tomas

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Last updated: 3 March 1997
<p>
<h1 align=center>Working Group Multilingualism</h1>
<h2 align=center>G7 Project <i>A Global Marketplace for SMEs</i> (G7-SME)</h2>

<h2>Introduction</h2>
The objective of this working group is to make recommendations
on multilingualism for the
<a href="http://www.ispo.cec.be/infosoc/eleccom/g7results.html" >
G7 Project <i>A Global Marketplace for SMEs</i></a>
(Small and Medium Enterprises).
The
<a href="http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/dgiii/dgiiiint.htm">
Directorate General for Industry</a>
(DG-III) from the
<a href="http://europa.eu.int/">European Commission</a>
has the mandate for this Project.
</a>
<p>
In this context, <em>multilingualism</em> includes:

<ul><dl>
<dt><li> Internationalization and localization (I18N, L10N)
<dd>How to produce cultural neutral software and the localization
to one culture.
<p>
<dt><li> Language Engineering (LE)
<dd>Including the connection to human translation, pseudo-automatic
translation (PAT), i.e. catalogs, and machine translation. (MT) 
</dl></ul>
Multilingualism cannot be just considered a technical subject and
it has to be handled with care due to its emotional nature.
<p>
This document is an early draft an all the items are open to discussion.

<h2>Multilingualism and SMEs</h2>

Multilingualism is basic infrastructure for the internet as
it is, for example, security.
It is needed for global electronic commerce.
Though the SMEs have some peculiarities,
the majority of the functionalities are common to all users
of global electronic commerce independantly of the size.
<p>
The strategy should be to participate in the existing fora working
on the multilingual standards and making sure that the needs of the SMEs
are catered for.
To this end, the peculiarities of the SMEs must identify.
<p>
The aim should that the standards lead to:
<ul>
<li> New products/services usable by SMEs.
<p>
<li> Open markets so that the SME could offert goods and services.
</ul>
Starting new fora, working on very limited solutions and similar efforts
are bound to fail.
<p>
The main effort will be on the web technology, without the exclusion
of other technologies.

<h2>Peculiarities of the SMEs</h2>
<dl>
<dt><b>Adapted products/services</b>
<dd>SMEs suffer much more from the lack of this infrastructure than larger
firms; for example, they can afford less the cost of translation.
<p>
<dt><b>Standards</b>
<dd>Standards lower the barrier for entering a market.
In the case of SMEs could be the <em>only</em> way to enter a market.
<p>
<dt><b>Cannot affort to be present in the standards process</b>
<dd>Participating in the standardization process is too expensive 
for many SMEs.
<p>
<dt><b>Middle man</b>
<dd>Electronic commerce could eliminate some middle men.
Some of this middle men are need today only because of their
language knowledge.
<p>
<dt><b>Far away markets</b>
<dd>It is very difficult for a SMEs in Kagoshima (Southern Japan)
to order olive oil directly from a SMEs in Jaen (Southern Spain).
Among others, language is one of the main barriers.
If the buyer could order in Japanese using a browser
and the supplier could see the order in Spanish with a browser,
more trasactions of this type would take place.
The web technology combined with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
and Pseudo-Automatic Translation (PAT) (catalog translation)
could facilitate this type of transaction.
<p>
<dt><b>Language Engineering</b> (LE)
<dd>Most firms involved in LE, such as translation, are SMEs.
There are two main aspects:
<p>
<dl>
<dt><li>Tool production
<dd>Software companies that produce tools
such as programs for assisting translation
<p>
<dt><li>Tool usage
<dd>Translation companies that use tools
such as programs for assisting translation
</dl>
<p>
LE is a sector with few standards.
For example, it is not possible to buy a program for assiting the
translation from one vendor and the dictionary from a different vendor.
Standards could make this sector bloom.
</dl>

<h2>Testbeds</h2>
<dl>
<dt><b>Model</b>
<dd>A model multilingual site that
could be copied by parties that want to implement this type of sites.
<p>
<dt><b>Tourism</b>
<dd>A reservation system for hotel.
To start with, business to business (travel agent, hotel).
The transaction could be based on EDI.
<p>
<dt><b>Translation</b>
<dd>Some elements for an open translation system. 
</dl>

Collaboration with other Directorates General (DGs) from the
<a href="http://europa.eu.int/">European Commission</a>.
In particular,
<a href="http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/dg16/dg16.htm">Directorate General for
Regional Policy and Cohesion</a>
(DG-XVI) and
<a href="http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/dg23/index.htm">Directorate General for
Enterprise Policy, Distributive Trades, Tourism and Cooperatives</a>
(DG-XXIII).
This could take the form of a single project with several contracts.

<h2>Calendar</h2>

<dl>
<dt><b>
<a href="http://www.cm.spyglass.com/unicode/iuc10/index.html">Tenth
International Unicode Conference</a></b> (IUC10).
10-12 March 1997, Mainz.
<p>
<dd>
The possibility to arrange a meeting during these dates
(not officially connected with IUC10) would be explored.
The objective of this meeting would be to profit from the
gathering of the many experts present there and who would not be present
in the workshop in Brussels.
<p>
A sponsorship request for the IUC10 was made to the European Commission
(waiting for reply).
<p>
<b>The Unicode efforts should be offically supported</b>.
<p>
<dt><b>
Electronic Commerce Workshop.
G7 Project <i>A Global Marketplace for SMEs</i></b>.
13-14 March 1997, Brussels.
<p>
<dd>
Thu 13: 10.30-17.30<br>
Fri 14: 9.30-16.00<br>
<p>
Hotel President World<br>
180 Boulevard Emeli Jacquemain<br>
B-1210 Brussels. Belgium.
<p>
Workshop of all the working groups G7-SME.
<p>
<dt><b>
<a href="http://www.G7ec.de">First Annual Conference of the
G7 Project <i>A Global Marketplace for SMEs</i></a></b>.
7-9 April 1997, Bonn.
<p>
<dd>
15.45-16.30 (45 minutes), 9 April
<p>
<ul>
<li> Yvan Lauzon
<li> Roberto Cencioni
<li> Link with WWW6
</ul>
<p>
15 minutes each.
<p>
There should be (waiting for final confirmation) a telecom link with
the <em>Panel Multilingualism</em> of the WWW6.
<p>
Clarification: Formal administrative link with WWW6 ?
<p>

<dt><b>
<a href="http://www6conf.slac.stanford.edu">Sixth International WWW Conference</a></b> (WWW6).
7-11 April 1997, Santa Clara (USA).
<p>
<dd>
There should be (waiting for final confirmation) a telecom link with the
<em>Multilingualism Presentation</em> of the
First Annual Conference of the G7-SME.
<p>
Clarification: Formal administrative link with
First Annual Conference of the G7-SMEs</i>.
</dl>

<h2>The Working Group Multilingualism</h2>
For the inmediate future,
there are three types of participations:
<dl>
<dt><b>Electronic</b>
<dd> Participation in creating this <i>rolling document</i>
that will be the reference document for the following meetings.
<p>
<dt><b>Mainz, 10-12 March 97</b>
<dd> Participation in the meetings at the same time as the Unicode Conference.
<p>
<dt><b>Brussels, 13-14</b>
<dd> Participation in the workshop of all the working groups.
</dl>

<h2>Related links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.crpht.lu/~carrasco/winter">WInter</a> (Web Internationalization & Multilingualism)
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/International/Sevilla-96">WInter Symposium</a>, 20 Nov 96,  Sevilla, Spain
<li><a href="http://europa.eu.int">European Commission</a>
<li><a href="http://www.ispo.cec.be">ISPO</a>
<li><a href="http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/smehome.htm">G7-SME</a> (Cordis)
<li><a href="http://www.gip.int">G7 Project <i>Global Inventory Project</i></a>
<li><a href="http://www.netscape.com/comprod/columns/techvision/international.html">Declaration on multilingualism</a> by Marc Andreesseen from Netscape
</ul>

<h2>Author</h2>
Rapporteur for the WG 1b (or 1c ?) - multilingualism
<a href="http://www.crpht.lu/~carrasco/winter/tomas.html">M.T. Carrasco Benitez</a>
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Received on Monday, 3 March 1997 13:57:20 UTC