A framework for the integration of internationalization and localization activities into the software development process

Internationalization is the process of developing an application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. It enables a single application to handle text from various languages and locals and it accommodates the targeted user specific data and culture requirements. A key challenge to the software industry with regard to software internationalization continues to be the lack of an effective internationalization strategy combined with the lack of a comprehensive framework for the integration of internationalization and localization activities into the software development lifecycle.;This dissertation first discusses the main aspects of global software and global software production, and secondly it introduces a new framework for the production and testing of global software. The new framework describes the integration of internationalization and localization activities into the normal software development lifecycle. This new framework not only provides guidelines and requirements for the development of global software, it also provides technical and practical advice pertaining to the development of this software. This research is somewhat biased towards the development and testing issues of bidirectional languages software, especially Arabic software due to the lack of research in this area.