The other day I actually met Odoo's founder Fabien for the first time. Meeting him in a casual setting (an izakaya), my first impression was "a gentle bear who has wandered out of the forest".
With other Odoo partners present (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia), I made my case about the challenges facing the Japanese market with some passion. What follows is the conversation, including Salvatore, Odoo's Hong Kong director.
Tashiro: "The burden of Japanese translation work is heavy and it is tough going. Is there anything that can be done?"
Fabien: "What is the situation?"
Tashiro: "About 66% by string count. By word count it is lower. We have put several hundred hours into it so far and 100% is still a long way off."
Salvatore: (to Fabien) "The Japanese market is very particular. There are language and culture barriers that make it hard to break into. We recognise the translation situation as a challenge too."
Tashiro: "We want Odoo to spread, so we will keep chipping away at the translation, but we would like some form of support from Odoo. Rather than leaving it to the community, I think Odoo really ought to step in and push the translation further itself. Open source or not, Odoo has effectively been selling a product since V9."
Salvatore: "We actually had Chinese done by a translation agency. The market is large and Odoo has been catching on there. But the quality was poor and a good deal of rework came out of it. It is a complex system, so when someone without the context does it, you end up with odd translations."
Tashiro: "True. But leaving it to the community has its limits too. Japanese is an especially distant language from English, so it does not move along briskly the way Dutch or German does, and the pool of people who can do it is limited. Part of it is that other players do not do it because we are already doing it."
Fabien: "How much of it is Quartile doing?"
Tashiro: "More than half of what has been translated, I think."
Fabien: "That much. Thank you. I wonder what can be done. Would outsourcing the translation work reduce the burden at all?"
Tashiro: "Hmm, going by what was just said I do not think we can expect much quality. Better than nothing, I suppose."
Salvatore: "How about mentioning contributors in a newsletter for Japan?"
Tashiro: "That would be good. Odoo should put more thought into mechanisms for building up community activity."
Fabien: "I will think about it. I will be in touch."
Tashiro: "Also, I wonder about Odoo's current pricing for Japan. Japan is at a disadvantage compared with the United States or Australia when it comes to localisation, translation included. On top of that there is currently no bank integration, and locale-related bugs tend to crop up." (Japan is in the same price category as Australia and the United States.)
Fabien: "How many partners are there in Japan now? Three, counting Quartile. I see — we will need to give that some thought."
How far a conversation over drinks can be followed up on, I do not know, but I think it was an ideal opportunity to convey the state of the Japanese market.
Quartile intends to keep bringing Japan's voice to Odoo, contributing to the growth of Odoo's ecosystem, and helping to make implementing business systems in Japan more interesting.
Fabien was in Hong Kong for this event.
A conversation with Odoo's founder, Fabien Pinckaers