Re: Recommendations for future Sharp Z models?

Hamish Marson wrote:

 >>
 >> 7. New models for the Eurpean market
 >> Well, just recently we have to import directly from Japan or the US 
and don't get a localized version (we would need a QWERTZ keyboard here 
in Germany and opening a Zaurus and switching the keycaps is only part 
of a solution).
 >
 > A hardware keyboard is probably a disadvantage in the Eu... With so 
many different nationalities needing different keyboards. What about a 
C760 lookalike, but with smart keys! Each key could be a small LCD 
matrix display (Or OLED for seeing it in the dark :) so you could 
redefine the keyboard & the keycaps would all change... Damn, I should 
patent that! Remember you heard it here first!
 >

Sharp should - IMHO - take a bold move and give up on this
'localization' nonsense altogether. With Zaurus, they have nothing
to loose: 'localization' is a never-ending 'catch-up' game,
resulting, at best, in incomplete and 'late-on-arrival' solutions,
always in danger (as the beginning of this thread suggests) of being
left 'orphaned'. And the consumers are not fools: they know this.
I would bet that not too many years from now this is exactly how
the computers will be sold - i.e. not multiple 'local' hardware/OS
versions, but as 'one-World-one-computer/OS' products. Localization,
if any, will be strictly at the application UI level. (And this
comes from a non-US, non-english-native-tongue user/developer).

r. kelly