Dev for Localization Cost of dev

In my previous posting I posted that I believed that MS should introduce a new approach as regards all localisation developpment efforts.

Max Belugin (a co blogger whose blog you can find in the links as well as the man behind a highly recommended tabax as well as featuring prominently on the axaptapedia site and running the russian Erpkb.com) was so kind as to respond by asking what I believe the overhead would be for MS to introduce this as a general rule in all GDL work.

My reply was rather direct and immediate, why because 4 years ago I advised a company about this exact same issue, it was not really about GDL work but rather, they wanted to do a phased implementation through several european countries and they wanted a centralised solution :-).

What I in fact winded up advising them to do was to identify each localisation development that they needed from each country, and re-package the developpment by creating parameters around it.

This costs them a lot of time each time a SP is released as they have to go back and look again at each localization just to ensure that there are no bug fixes that they need.

However they have an implemention covering the three scandinavian countries, France, Italy, Spain, Czech Rep, Poland, and the UK all on one DB.
Not a huge installation in number of users but it works and is a good example of what would be possible with less cost if MS did the work to begin with.

In their estimation based on metrics from the other work that this customer has done ( all their own development also adheres to the rule of being switchable) the dev time is upped by about 15% and the testing time is doubled. These are average figures from about 4 years experience all on V3 platform so far no V4 experience though I believe the metrics will hold true as not a lot has changed.

The fact that the testing time is doubled is logical and important as it is important to ensure the software works without as well as with the functionality enabled.

However I contend that the fact that the above is not done by MS is costing partners and customers, more than the time MS would spend on the issue and as there are maybe 300 international deals (1 out of 20 ? based on 6000 sold licenses) the above means that the dealers or the customers are spending in effect more than 300 times the effort that MS would spend. Think of the lost potential new revenue ;-) this is one for Flemming's new group that is seeking to improve partner productivity. ( My estimation of international deals being one in 20 is perhaps too high hard to tell without more info however I believe that it should be in that region more consistently if MS supported it better :-) )

Up for discussion, what do you think ?

/Sven