Last week we reported that there’s a snazzy OneNote client for iPhone, but that it hadn’t been released for Australia. Microsoft eventually got back to us to explain what’s going on, though only if we use “explain” in the loosest possible sense.
Essentially, Microsoft’s stance comes down to this:
- Currently, OneNote for iPhone is a US-only release. No explanation will be offered as to why this is the case.
- OneNote for iPhone may eventually see release in other markets, but no timetable or target countries are able to be made public.
I’d guess that localisation might be a factor, but switching from US English to AU English should involve nothing more than swapping out a file, not an entirely new development strategy. If that is the reason, it doesn’t bode well for the product’s future.
Microsoft is of course free to release whatever it likes to whatever markets it chooses, but if I was looking to try and develop a better universal capture system, I’d be avoiding any software that didn’t have clearly-established release plans, and I’d advise anyone else to do the same.
gary2002
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 5:04 PMGood to have a US iTunes account.
Southpatt
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 5:21 PMHah. Is there such a thing as Au-English any more ?
We are so Amercanized! (look! I used a Z :) )
the Odd one
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 6:24 PMYes, but was it a Zed or a Zee? These things are important you know.
Mike Williams
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 7:25 PMThe ‘z’ in -ize/-yze is not an Americanism. That’s a myth started in the education sector and sadly perpetuated by the Macquarie dictionary folks. If you look at the OED, it prefers -z- usage to -s- in most cases.
ray martin
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 2:44 AMMACQUARIE DICTIONARYYYYYYYYY! *shakes fist*
Angus Kidman
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 7:30 AMNonetheless, it’s clear that using ‘s’ over ‘z’ remains the dominant pattern in UK (and Australian) English — and that the predominate dialect which uses ‘z’ is American English. Whether the OED prefers one over the other hasn’t actually changed that!
Mike Williams
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 11:16 AM@Angus: (Why can’t we reply to your posts? Editorial might?) mostly because of politicization in recent years. I looked back into the history of it about 10 years ago and found that it actually has a fairly recent history. Blaming it on the yanks this time (even given some of the silly things that Samuel Webster did do) is not correct in this case.
I tend to prefer the -z- anyway when that is the actual sound made.
Angus Kidman
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 11:18 AMNo reason I know of why replies to my posts should be different to replies to anyone else, but I’ll look into it.
Mike Williams
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 7:22 PMMicrosoft only ever has a single worldwide English binary for its products ie it’s US English *everywhere*. ( Data files for spell-checking etc are loaded on demand, but are completely independent of the UI language. )
Paul Koz
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 7:30 PMAnother example of Microsoft forgetting why customers are searching for alternatives (e.g. Apple)
youdumbarse
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 9:43 AMApple are the champions of doing this. I suggest you look at the Itunes store and how products are available in some countries and not others. Your bias is showing
Angus Kidman
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 9:49 AMBut Apple doesn’t make those availability decisions — the developers (or labels) do. I could blame Apple for making the store available at different times in different countries, but not for what developers do afterwards.
Paul
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 8:09 PMDint worry MS are notorious for producing “catch up” programs then when they don’t get market share they remove all support and then leave loyal MS and people who like there programs (all 12 of them) out in the lurch. Australia isn’t missing anything.