Re: Recommendations for future Sharp Z models?

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, rhkelly wrote:

> 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


er... If Sharp doesn't "localise" the Zaurus, then it'll have Kanji
characters on the keyboard, yes?  How can I, an US-English-native-tongue
person who doesn't know more than the barest snippet of Japanese, going to
find a Kanji keyboard useful?  If the OS is showing me messages full of
squiggly characters rather than my familiar US English messages, how can I
find that device useful?

- David