Quip Mobile word processing application starts supporting five languages

Absrtact: In less than one months after the launch, the start-up company quip Mobile word processing applications have started to support five languages. Quip's successful experience tells us that American application developers should seize the opportunity to move to the international arena as soon as possible, otherwise

Within less than one months of the launch, the start-up company quip Mobile word processing applications have started supporting five languages. Quip's successful experience tells us that American application developers should seize the opportunity to move to the international arena as soon as possible, or it will be too late.

Google (Weibo) and Apple App Store give developers the opportunity to quickly reach international users, according to ReadWrite, the US technology blog. But a new study by flurry, a market-research firm, shows that most American application developers are not making the most of these platforms.

However, a pioneering company named Quip has successfully used these platforms to launch its own word processing applications for tablets and smartphones, and has started supporting five languages in less than one months.

Few English speakers have ever heard of quip apps--a competitor for Microsoft Office 365 and Google's Google Apps. But why is this obscure app being extended to people who speak German, French, Spanish, Italian and mandarin?

Focus on the language you support

The US is rapidly losing its competitive edge in the software market as software moves gradually, Flurry reported. In 2008, the number of software developed by American companies accounted for 65% of the global software market. Now, 64% of apps are developed outside the United States. Especially Chinese users, who spend most of their time in applications developed in China.

That's why application developers should move to the international arena as soon as possible. If not, they may lose the best opportunity to attract international users.

But for quip, the reason for its rapid internationalization is that it has the conditions to do so. Bret Taylor, the company's CEO, said his team promoted the app faster and less expensive because of good planning ahead of schedule and a good release platform for mobile developers from Apple and Google.

Generally speaking, the internationalization process of an application often occurs after the developer conquers the local market. Moreover, it often requires developers to redesign the infrastructure of the application. This slows down the application development process and increases the cost of development.

Previously, Taylor had worked on Facebook, and before that, he and his co-founder, Kevin Gibbs, had worked on Google. These work experiences help quip teams think about how to build software that is both internationalized and localized from the start.

Google, in particular, has added many tools to support internationalization in the Android software development suite. But, Taylor says, these tools are not particularly useful, because quip's goal is to internationalize both Apple iOS, Google Android and mobile networks on three platforms.

In the process of internationalization of an application, the biggest challenge is to handle string or text character blocks. "Many local platforms have their own way of handling strings, so we designed an internal tool that allows us to share the same translation framework between Android and iOS." "It's an interesting thing and we want better tools to do it," Taylor said. He also said he would consider publishing the tool as an Open-source software when quip small teams were less busy.

Handling strings is a very clever thing to do. On each platform, any application may have different ways of rendering the interface elements. "If you do not handle the translation properly, you may need to pay three times for the translator to translate the same content." Taylor explained.

Towards International

Taylor's hope is that the market for Office software around the world will be stable. "A lot of developers are giving priority to the U.S. market. "If you go into the Office software category of the Spanish App Store, you may be uncompetitive." "But Flurry's analysis shows that this is unlikely to last long.

The quip app is easy to conquer users in a market where users first touch smartphones and tablet computers and touch PC computers. For example, many international users use Facebook only on their phones, Taylor said. Quip, however, is likely to have a Facebook-like experience because it focuses on creating files on mobile devices.

"In this way, the cost of our promotion is very low." "We're always focused on usage, which country has a higher usage rate, and we're going to do more in which country," Taylor said. Taylor says quip will then develop Korean and Japanese versions.

Internationalization is not the only way for quip or any other mobile application developer. However, one obvious fact is that if you don't support multiple languages, your application will be hard to make a mark in other markets. It may be too late to wait until you realize the problem. The quip company's development experience tells us that we should support other languages as soon as possible, and always add new languages.