Category Archives: Vendors

SDL Asks Companies to “Switch”

Posted on by

sdlx-switch-post-it-note.gif

In a page borrowed from Apple’s playbook, globalization services/software vendor SDL is asking prospects to switch over to SDLX.

What is SDLX? It’s a computer-aided translation (CAT) software tool used by translators and agencies to more efficiently and more quickly manage translation. The leader in this space by a long margin is TRADOS.

And, as I written previously, it’s not easy to get companies and translation agencies to switch their CAT tools, particularly away from the market leader. That’s why I like SDL’s new Web-based campaign so much. It poses and answers the types of questions that prospects will naturally ask, like:

- Why switch?
- What companies have swtiched?
- How hard is it to switch?

My only question is will this campaign work as well for SDL as it did for Apple?

Getting to Know Global IA

Posted on by

I’m at the IA Summit in Montreal and have been pleased to find that IA (information architecture) professionals are tackling the challenges of content globalization in a big way. And this is a great thing, because the IA industry is critical to the evolution of truly successful global Web sites.

I’m not much of an IA guy, so I’ve been getting up to speed on industry buzzwords like facets and taxonomies and folksonomies. And the presentations by far have been terrific.

There were a total of four sessions that spoke directly to content globalization, touching on everything from translation testing to global IA (I gave a talk on one of my favorite topics, the global gateway). And there were a good number of attendees across these sessions — mostly internal IA professionals and their agency counterparts. I did not find one localization industry professional (besides myself), but I expect that to change in the years ahead.

Thanks to the efforts of Louis Rosefeld, Peter Van Dijck, Jorge Arango, Livia Labate, and many others, I expect we’ll see some really exciting things coming out of the IA industry, which will have a large impact on the localization industry. My personal goal will be to do what I can to get the localization industry and the IA industry to work more closely together to share insights and do a better job of advancing global Web sites, from taxonomy to translation.

PS: I spoke with more than a dozen IAs who are all working on brand new multilingual Web projects (from IT to services to apparel), another strong sign that companies have awakened to the importance of Web globalization. I said it before and I’ll say it again: 2005 is the year that Web globalization goes mainstream.

SDL Reports Robust Software Sales

Posted on by

SDL announced last week that sales of its translation memory (TM) software were up 85% with more than “10,000 new product units across all markets.” I’m still trying to get a handle on how these numbers translate to market share; TRADOS is still the undisputed gorilla in this space.

For years, TRADOS has been the standard among translators, translation vendors, and their clients. The nice thing about being the dominant software tool is that it is very hard for a competitor to take market share away from you.

But SDL appears to be making progress. Although the larger trend of companies moving to XML-based content could make the battle between the TM vendors largely irrelevant.

What I find interesting is that SDL has had success selling both software and services. It looks like some clients appreciate having a vendor who can manage everything, from translation to content management workflow to software support.

Looking ahead, I wonder if we see the other members of the “big three” — Lionbridge and Bowne Global Solutions — get into the software biz. I would not be surprised to see one of them follow SDL’s lead.

TRADOS Seeks Strength In Numbers

Posted on by

TRADOS has announced a Globalization Partner Program in an effort to bring “together leading globalization software and services companies to remove complex, persistent barriers that prevent enterprises from effectively reaching global markets.” In other words, if we can all get along with one another perhaps we can all make a little extra money.

In all seriousness, this is what the clients want: content management software, localization software and globalization management software that all play well with one another. I’m glad TRADOS is taking the lead on this.

Inaugural partner members include:

-> EMC Corporation for EMC Documentum products (enterprise content management)
-> RedDot Solutions (enterprise content management)
-> Blast Radius (XMetaL XML content creation)
-> Glemser Technologies (systems integration for life sciences)
-> Day Software (enterprise content management)
-> InterDoc (integrator for enterprise content management systems)
-> Alchemy Software Development (visual software localization solutions)
-> PASS Engineering (visual software localization solutions)
-> acrolinx (controlled language and linguistic tools)
-> Transclick (real-time translation services)
-> Transmissions (desktop publishing localization tools)

This is a nice mix of large and small vendors. I have no hard research to base this on but I get the feeling we’re going to see another wave of CMS vendors emerge, spawned in part by the open-source movement and the failure of the “big boys” like Documentum and Vignette to ever ship a low-end solution.

So, for the clients, content globalization is going to get more complicated before they get less complicated, which is why the TRADOS partner program is a good idea at the right time.