“Globalization” in information technology is no longer a word to which people will ask what it is. Nowadays, many Web-based or non-Web-based applications are designed and developed with the awareness of globalization, that is, the application is flexible enough to serve users in different languages and can be easily added with new language support.
Market Customization is a comparatively new concept although you can find traces of it in many existing e-business Web applications targeted for the global market. Globalization Market Customization means to adapt the content or layout of a Web application to markets of different locales.
As a result, there is a dilemma between globalization and market customization. Globalization requires a Single Executable system to support all the different language versions, while market customization needs to take care of the specific needs of different markets.
Tiles framework seems to be able to catch two birds with one stone. Tiles framework decomposes a Web page into subunits, so that the subunits appearing repeatedly in different Web pages within a Web site can be reused, and a Web page can also easily select which subunit it should use for a certain market. In this paper, I will discuss how to develop a globalized Web application which is market customizable by making use of the Tiles framework.
The target readers of this document are those who are interested in globalization market customization. This document assumes that the reader is familiar with Web site development, especially with Tiles framework, and a solid knowledge of globalization methodology is essential to understand why tiles framework can be so helpful in combining globalization technology with market customization.
Ming Zhu Cui
Software Engineer
IBM Corporation
Acknowledgments:
This paper is indebted to the help and technical review from Shanghai Globalization Lab, CSDL, especially Mr. John Hu, Mr. Huagang Huang and Dr. Ling Zhang, all being specialized in e-business development and globalization. | 
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