Hand-Held PCs Wait for Localization

Bob Emmerson

If you want to buy a Windows CE-compatible hand-held PC (HPC) in your local language, you may have to wait until the end of the year. Now, however, you can buy U.S. versions from manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and NEC in some European countries. But file transfer between an HPC and a PC works only if you load a U.S. English version of the HPC Explorer synchronization software and Schedule+ release 7.0a on your PC.

The irony is, however, that some text files on the CD that ships with Windows CE 1.0 carry warnings saying that "serious problems" might occur if HPC Explorer runs on anything other than the U.S. English version of Windows 95 or NT. Even if synchronization and file transfer bet ween systems work reliably, this procedure replaces DLL files that other programs also use and may cause instabilities on the host machine.

HP, for example, which ships its 300LX and 320LX models in the U.K. and the Netherlands, says it issues a warning about potential incompatibilities to wholesale outlets and retailers in the respective countries. However, the question is, of course, whether this warning will come through to the end user.

Philips states it hasn't encountered any difficulties while synchronizing with other language versions of Windows 95. Nevertheless, the company is playing it safe. "We have decided to launch this version [1.0] of Windows CE in selected markets where we feel the English language is not a problem," says Philips' Miriam Vriens, who is a product-marketing manager.

Some users may accept the inconvenience of U.S. English applications on the HPC and potentially a mix of localized and U.S. English applications on the host PC, but how about support for specia l-character sets? For example, if you copy a German doc file to the HPC, will it retain the umlauts? Philips says its Velo HPC supports "easy entering of European characters." However, the current version 1.0 of the OS does not support European character sets and data transfer may mean that some of the extended characters are not recognized and get dropped. (The final Velo version with this feature was launched in early September and couldn't be tested for this report.)

Currently, the only localization features of HP's models include the European date format and the currency symbol for the U.K. market. Says Barbara Wollny, spokeswoman at HP in Germany, "We will wait for Windows CE 2.0 for full support of local languages." According to Microsoft, version 2.0 will include support for several European languages and will ship in early December.