ERP System

The Most Important Types of ERP Software Systems on the Market  (PART II)

The Functional/Operational Characteristics and Multi-purpose Applications of Unicode

In its early stages of theoretical and then beta testing applications, the first prototype of Unicode- one of the earliest types of ERP software systems - was originally intended to focus primarily on modern languages and related dialects that are in current use, but the functions of Unicode were expanded in later versions to develop specific, text encoding systems for those languages with ancient historical roots which, in the modern contemporary era, were considered obsolete.  

Examples of these include Egyptian hieroglyphics, the encoding of which was made possible in 1996 thanks to the introduction of Unicode 2.0, which increased the number of code points (the numerical values which make up the “code space,” or the available encoding space defined by the parameters of the program) to over a million, maximizing the program’s capacity thanks to the simultaneous implementation of multiple functions directed towards multiple objectives.

A “code space” basically consists of individual code points. The language and text encoding potential of the program ultimately depends on the amount of code space available. A greater number of code points – as in the case of Unicode 2.0 - maximizes the software potential to encode more elaborate characters and scripts, which the previous 16-bit system of the first version of Unicode was unable to do because of its limited code space. Generally, the variability in the number of code points allowed in ERP software systems may also be dependent on other factors, like the memory capacity and operational capability of the computerized system that is used to run the specific program.  

The structure of the encoding program used in the first version of Unicode, and in the other types of ERP software systems developed in later years that followed its model, is very similar to ASCII, one of the earliest types of computer languages. Based on the structure of ASCII, different applications and improvements were later introduced that gave birth to modern text and character set encoding programs implemented in popular ERP software systems such as Unicode, and MYSAPERP - SAP’s ERP software system-, among others that are used for the global development and deployment of customized ERP business solutions.

Unicode is an expanded version of ASC II, which has 128 code points. The first prototype was enlarged to 16 bits, allowing for a wider range of code space than ASCII. When Unicode 2.0 was developed, and the code space was increased to more than a million code points, this made it possible to encode not only text, but also more varied dialects- as in the case of Han Chinese characters, or historic scripts like Arabic, Celtic, Hebrew - and also glyphs, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics along with some types of cuneiform writing.

Written by :

tracey boxer