Dear Marion,
After checking the mail lists upon returning from vacation/holiday, I found the following comment on the most recent Unicode conference in Dublin rather surprising: When, after all the years of receiving Irish support, I saw Unicode's 2002 conference in Dublin being advertised as more of a showcase for German than native interests, I decided not to attend, but that does not mean any withdrawal of EGT's initial and longstanding support of Unicode, in principal (although it seems to have produced only one thing to date, viz., a book called 'The Unicode Standard' (where I expected to read 'Implementation'). As a matter of fact, we specifically designed the Dublin Unicode Conference to tie in with the substantial Dublin localization industry. I am quite sorry if this purpose was misunderstood. Our keynote speaker you refer to was from the Localization Research Institute of the University of Limerick. It is too bad that you were not able to attend, particularly since you have a great interest in Unicode implementations (as do I). We were able to showcase implementations ranging from top US IT businesses, to many interesting worldwide case studies, localization, etc. I think you would have enjoyed it (in addition to the local pub:-). Implementation is truly where "the rubber meets the road", to use an American idiom. In this regard, the conferences have a goal to champion leading edge Unicode implementations. I particularly enjoyed hearing from a British mobile phone company at the Dublin conference - Unicode is popping up everywhere, it seems. Best regards, Lisa Moore Co-Chair, IUC