RE: Unicode market acceptance

From: Hart, Edwin F. (Edwin.Hart@jhuapl.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 13 2001 - 15:13:35 EST


I believe that you are asking

(1) when will most of the products be enabled for Unicode (I assume a fairly
high implementation level, but not necessarily every script)?
(2) when will most of the data that people use be encoded in Unicode?

In 1993, I speculated that initial products would emerge in the 1995-1996
time frame and would be refined to handle more scripts and more Unicode
features and have a high implementation level by 2000.

Clearly, I was wrong. : )

Ed Hart

Edwin F. Hart
edwin.hart@jhuapl.edu
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road
Laurel, MD 20723-6099
USA
+1-443-778-6926 (Baltimore area)
+1-240-228-6926 (Washington, DC area)
+1-443-778-1093 (fax)
+1-240-228-1093 (fax)

-----Original Message-----
From: Suzanne M. Topping [mailto:stopping@bizwonk.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 13:36
To: Unicode List
Subject: RE: Unicode market acceptance

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tex Texin [mailto:texin@progress.com]

> We have estimates for (human) language usages on the web, its too
> bad there isn't an estimate for when Unicode will dominate.

You would think that you could project out some rough timeline for when
Unicode crosses over to be the standard mechanism, meaning that other
methods of character support will become a pain in the tush to
implement. Since it is the default for all the new and evolving
technologies (XML, SOAP, UDDI etc.) and since virtually all platforms
are moving toward using these technologies, there will have to be a
rollover point where it takes more work to deal with other character
sets. The .NET framework should be in place in 2002, and the other
platforms are rolling right along with their own shifts. So what might
be a reasonable timeline? When will virtually all users around the world
use Unicode-enabled browsers? By 2003? And when will the new frameworks
and platforms grow to widespread use?

Anyone want to throw a dart?
 



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