Chapter 12. Internationalization and Struts
Companies can no longer afford to think only about local
marketplaces. Since the mid to late 1990s, the business world has
been overrun with ideas about a world economyall you have to
do is look at what's happening in Europe with the
Euro. Businesses and even countries are realizing that they
can't just think about their traditional markets and
at the same time continue to grow revenue and be successful; they
must start thinking globally and attempt to bring in global customers
for their products and services. With the explosion of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, companies
conducting business on the Internet began to find out that providing
access to their products and services via a web site was an ideal way
of attracting new customers from all over the world. One of the key
reasons is 24/7 access. Regardless of the time zone the business or
the customers are in, the Web allows a customer to shop and purchase
goods and services at any time of the day or night. Traditional
business hours are irrelevant on the Web. What unlimited access can
mean to companies and their revenue is enormous. However, for the
software developers that have to build and maintain the applications
to support global customers, the task can be daunting. This chapter focuses on what it takes to make a Struts application
available to customers from around the world, regardless of their
language or geographical location. As is often the case in software
development, planning ahead is the most important thing you can do to
help ensure success. After reading this chapter, you should be able
to build Struts applications that make it possible to support a broad
range of customers. |