The International Herald Tribune reports that English and Hindi have, for a variety of reasons, merged into a sort of lingua franca in a country with more than a dozen popular languages. Hindi may be the national language of India, …
Amazon recently added China to its global gateway. The link to takes you to Joyo.com, a company Amazon acquired over the summer. It will be interesting to see if Amazon attempts to “re-brand” Joyo as Amazon, or leave it as …
Here is an interesting Q&A with Peter Moore, global marketing chief of Microsoft’s Xbox. They have offered a subscription-based, online Xbox service for a couple years now and we find that Microsoft now offers the service in 24 countries and …
Linux developer Red Hat says it will add five new languages to its next generation of enterprise software – all Indian languages. Equally important, Red Hat plans to offer customer phone support in those languages. Although the company didn’t say …
This InfoWorld article cites a recent Gartner report that predicts that India will lose market share “from its current 80 percent to about 55 percent by 2007.” Who’s going to be nipping at India’s heels? Countries to watch include Ghana, …
CNET News features an entertaining article on some of the creative ways that Microsoft has offended people around the world through cultural and linguistic blunders. These anecdotes come from a recent presentation by a Microsoft executive, who is probably now …
The search engine war in China has long been heated, but Yahoo! recently upped the stakes with the launch of a new search portal: www.yisou.com. It sure looks a lot like Google’s search portal, underscoring the dramatic success Google has …
The Reveries Web site has an interesting piece on Whirlpool and its localization efforts in Latin America. Apparently the company has had great success in Brazil by creating a low-cost “people’s washer” with features unique to the marketplace. Here’s an …
According to a recent press release, last year more than 15 NBA teams incorporated Asian American marketing efforts into their overall marketing plans. And the timing isn’t due just to Yao; today, there are three Chinese players in the NBA: …
This is a great article about Procter & Gamble’s adventures in Russia. While currency devalatuations have been challenging, the economy has since stabilized and sales are growing at 50% annually (although revenues are still a fraction of US revenues). Products …