JAN/FEB 2017

Exploring the translation market in Russia A code of ethics for the Russian translation industry

Defense opportunities in Poland & Central Eastern Europe

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Post Editing

#165 Volume 28 Issue 1 January/February 2017

Editor-in-Chief, Publisher: Donna Parrish Managing Editor: Katie Botkin Proofreaders: Bonnie Hagan, Bernie Nova News, Calendar: Kendra Gray Given the outcome of the US presidential Production: Darlene Dibble, Doug Jones election, it’s an interesting time to be looking at Doug Jones Cover Photo: Eastern Europe. Nobody quite knows how the next Technical Analyst: Curtis Booker Assistants: Gayle Hallock, Chelsea Nova few years will play out with the United States, Russia, Circulation: Terri Jadick the countries immediately surrounding Russia, the Special Projects: Bernie Nova larger European region and outwards. Advertising Director: Kevin Watson Many of the people I’m talking to in the Marketing Director: Marjolein Groot Nibbelink localization industry are wary of the cultural shifts Finance: Leah Thoreson happening in the West, and for good reason. Any Editorial Board pull towards nationalism or against friendly cross- Games: Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino country exchange will likely have a chilling effect on Standards: David Filip international markets. Maybe. Again, it’s difficult to Business: Aki Ito Marketing: Nataly Kelly say for sure. User Experience: Ultan Ó Broin For now, though, as always, we will look for ways Technology: Jost Zetzsche to promote friendly cross-cultural exchange. We Advertising have two articles focusing on Russia — one on the [email protected] Russian localization market, another on the Russian http://multilingual.com/magazine-ads localization market coming together to form a code +1 208-263-8178 of ethics for the region. Looking at their process Subscriptions, back issues, customer service may be helpful for anyone wanting to create a [email protected] similar code of ethics. http://multilingual.com/subscription-information We also have an article studying the defense Submissions, letters opportunities in Poland — particularly prescient [email protected] now, although the topic may not be one that Editorial guidelines are available at necessarily appeals to our humanitarian instincts. http://multilingual.com/editorial-submissions Unless, of course, you see lines of defense in Poland Reprints as necessary for peacekeeping in the region. [email protected] And although this may be controversial, it is the MultiLingual Computing, Inc. approach Poland seems to be taking. Privacy and 319 North First Avenue, Suite 2 language in German localization are also covered — Sandpoint, Idaho 83864-1495 USA German bridges Western and Eastern Europe, and [email protected] privacy concerns will likely become more and more http://multilingual.com relevant in any localization, particularly for countries © MultiLingual Computing, Inc., January/February 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction like Germany. without permission is prohibited. For reprints and eprints, please email [email protected] or call +1 208-263-8178. Whether you’re from Eastern Europe or MultiLingual (ISSN 1523-0309) is published monthly except Apr-May, Jul-Aug, Oct-Nov for US $58, international $85 per year by somewhere else, please know that as far as I am MultiLingual Computing, Inc., 319 North First Avenue, Suite 2, Sandpoint, ID 83864-1495. Periodicals postage paid at Sandpoint, ID and additional mailing offices. concerned, you are welcome to visit my beautiful POSTMASTER: Send address changes to MultiLingual, 319 North First Avenue, Suite 2, Sandpoint, ID 83864-1495. hometown in the USA whenever you would like. We can nerd out about the industry and I can take you hiking.

This NewPage paper has been chain-of-custody certified by three independent third-party certification systems. MultiLingual is printed on 30% post-consumer recycled paper.

January/February 2017 5 Contents

Focus: Central and Eastern Europe

34 38 42 46 Exploring the A code of ethics Privacy and Defense translation market for the Russian language in opportunities in Russia translation German in Poland Konstantine Dranch industry localization Jacob Andra Serge Gladkoff Libor Safar

Technology

51 56 63 Building a roadmap Messenger bots Measuring the for Big Data and the demands benefits of using TM integration of localization SMT Konstantine Boukhvalov & Pavel Doronin Qun Liu & 56 Alexander Jimenez Andrzej Zydroń

Interpreting

60 Embracing interpreting delivery platforms Hélène Pielmeier 60

A festive assortment of traditional Slovak dyed eggs, decorated using wax-resist, hand-painting and applied cut-straw and needle work methods common in many Eastern European cultures.

6 January/February 2017 Contents

38

We are now featuring web-exclusive articles at multilingual.com/insights. Insights covers timely analysis of trends as well as articles on topics such as minority languages, best-practices anecdotes and cultural dos and don’ts.

Up Front

5 Post Editing

News

8 Recaps 12 News 15 Calendar 8

16 Review 67 Buyer’s Guide

Plunet 6.2 to 6.3 to 7.0 73 Advertiser Index by Richard Sikes

Columns

22 Perspectives by Attila Görög 24 Perspectives by Luke Sewell 27 Community Lives by Jeannette Stewart 74 Takeaway 24 by Giovanna Roeseler

January/February 2017 7 Recaps

LocWorld32 considers business and balance

LocWorld32 took place in Mon- treal, Canada, October 26-28, 2016, and in the midst of discussions on global success, work-life balance was also addressed. On Thursday morn- ing, October 27, keynote speaker Donald Cooper stressed that success includes getting along with people at home and in the workplace, and not falling into the rut of what you think you know about a situation or about people. “For a lot of people, the life journey is passionate, complacent, resentful, bitter, then death,” he joked. This seemed to be well-received by an industry whose whole point of existing is communicating clearly and appropriately with customers, in their own language and according to their own mores. Cooper noted that localization “is a huge growth industry. I can’t think of another industry that’s growing at 7% a year.” Cooper speaks interna- Data may be key to pinpointing tionally in 40 industries worldwide, what your customers want. Yury Pety- offering advice on business growth ushin of All Correct Games presented and management. on Chinese and Russian gaming on Customers, he said, are well- Thursday afternoon and showed informed and also more confused and research his company did to pinpoint more cynical than ever before: “every what consumers really wanted. They industry and every market is over- determined that because gamers in served and under-differentiated.” Russia predominantly play for the full- Thus, it’s important to ask questions immersion escape, mistakes can kill about what they really want — ques- the experience. Russian players over- tions such as “What are they really whelmingly prefer localized versions, trying to do? What do they want (or although Chinese players may not. need) to know? How do they want On Friday, Helena Chapman of really successful. “We tried MT in to feel? How much do they expect to IBM mentioned that when it comes 1999, in 2005, and it didn’t work. pay?” There are different groups with to tech, it may take a few iterations Then in 2008, 2009, we really different motivations, Cooper said. before it’s mature enough to be embraced it,” said Chapman.

8 January/February 2017 Recaps

The game changers of 2016 in Portland

On October 24-25, 2016, 140 dele- gates from around the world joined at the beautiful Sentinel Hotel in Port- land, Oregon, for the TAUS Annual Conference 2016 to discuss different aspects of and perspectives on the future of the localization industry. Eric Liu from Alibaba Language Innovation Contest group of winners. From left to right: George Zhao (Boffin), Services opened the conference with Ivan Smolnikov (SmartCAT), Jaap van der Meer (TAUS), Spence Green (Lilt), Kenji a keynote speech. Liu gave an inside Takaoka (PIJIN), Paula Shannon (Lionbridge). look on how Alibaba is rethinking the production process as well as the busi- stressful minutes on the stage to pres- TAUS HAUS Band. This year the ness model for breaking the language ent their tool, technology or idea. The band consisted of Paul Mangell, Tim barrier. What followed was two days audience received an email with links Brown, Smith Yewell, Mimi Hills, filled with thought-provoking and to vote for what they thought was the Allen Dunkle, George Evgeneiadis, fruitful panel discussions. best innovation and at the end of the Allison McDougall, Jack Welde, For the first time in its history, conference, Paula Shannon and Jaap Mark Seligman, Tony O’Dowd, David TAUS organized parallel sessions, van der Meer announced the winners. Rhodes, Joy Howard, Gema Ramírez albeit for only a small part of the In the “invader” category, Lilt was the Sánchez and Paula Shannon. After a day. Attendees were able to choose absolute winner, while in the “insider” couple of hours of practice the eve- between two topics, moving to differ- category, Boffin (with VideoLocalize) ning before the conference, the band ent meeting rooms. When everyone was victorious. Some of the comments rocked the stage in the Secret Society came back to the plenary, the hosts about these solutions included “out-of- on October 24. of the parallel sessions gave a short the-box thinking and risk-taking,” “sexy 2016 was a busy year for TAUS, overview of their panel discussions. disruption,” “novel approach” and “most with a lot of events and new devel- With “the Game Changers of 2016” needed technology.” The runner-ups opments of products and services as theme TAUS hosted the Game were PIJIN from Japan with QR Trans- like the Quality Dashboard and the Changers Innovation Contest. As Paula lator, and the SmartCAT platform. DQF open API. The TAUS events of Shannon (Lionbridge) said in her open- The TAUS annual conference 2017 will be in Vienna, Amsterdam, ing speech, it takes courage to innovate. would not have been complete with- Tokyo, Girona/Barcelona and San 19 courageous presenters each spent six out a performance by the famous Jose, California.

Association for Machine Translation in the Americas conference held in Austin

The Association for Machine to interact and share their different and user perspectives on MT; Spence Translation in the Americas perspectives on the field. Green of Lilt discussed research chal- (AMTA) held its 12th biennial con- This year featured strong programs lenges in providing an online service ference October 28-November 2, in all three tracks — research, com- for sophisticated interactive MT; and 2016, in Austin, Texas. AMTA 2016 mercial user and government user — Doug Jones of MIT presented DAR- was attended by over 130 research as well as excellent keynote speakers. PA’s vision for its Human Language scientists, members of the language Rico Sennrich, a leading researcher Technology programs. Finally, Daniel industry and government represen- in neural MT, described the latest Marcu of ISI and Fair Trade Transla- tatives from Europe, Asia and North advances in that rapidly-evolving tion moderated a star-studded panel, America. AMTA is a unique confer- technology; Mike Dillinger, past with representatives from Autodesk, ence in that it provides a forum for AMTA president, brought his deep SDL, Google and Microsoft, on the people from very diverse parts of the experience to bear on the problem of prospects for MT commercialization machine translation (MT) ecosystem bridging the gap between researcher past, present and future.

January/February 2017 9 Recaps

Featured Reader Yannis Evangelou, cofounder and translation tools to a lead linguist CEO of lexiQA. for Facebook (for four years, via SDL). Where do you live? What language(s) do you speak? Berlin, Germany, since 2010. Greek (native), French (fluent), How did you get started in this English (fluent) and German industry? (proficient). I literally knocked on the door Whose industry social feeds of a UK translation agency and (Twitter, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook) asked to meet with the director, do you follow? who kindly let me in. I was given 30 minutes to present myself I mostly follow LinkedIn industry and elaborate on my plan (for a pages, such as eBay MT Lan- QA process I had in mind, which guage Specialists Series for their would preemptively detect lo- specialized articles, as well as calization errors before showing pages with initiatives that I like up in production). She said there to support, such as Translators was no available job for me. Two without Borders. days later, however, she called What do you like to do in your me and said that I would be given spare time? one month to prove that my plan I spend my spare time playing works. On my third day there, I with my son and pets (cat and caught two critical brand name rabbits), reading classical litera- errors on a 13-language project, information; every new issue is ture and watching silent black and she offered me a permanent like a treasure trove with feature and white films. role on the spot. I’ve worked in articles and news segments that the industry for a decade already, Why do you read MultiLingual? help me keep up with develop- with roles ranging from a tutor of I particularly like its diversity in ments in the industry.

10 January/February 2017 Recaps

Celebrating 25 years of Unicode

The Internationalization and Uni- University had code Conference celebrated its 25th to work around year November 1-3, 2016, in Santa some of the diffi- Clara, California. The conference culties in design- draws hundreds of language tech- ing fonts based nologists, typographers, linguists on current Uni- and industry participants. This year’s code encoding of event was especially notable for pull- Indic scripts. ing in top designers working with the The Android latest emoji. Major platforms includ- Internationaliza- ing Android, iOS, Facebook, Twitter tion session pro- and Instagram have millions of users vided a roundup sharing emoji. Language technolo- of Android’s inter- gists shared useful insights about the nationalization encoding process for emoji and how and localization platforms are leveraging natural lan- features, includ- Excitement at the Unicode conference. guage processing (NLP) and machine ing a hands-on learning to understand emoji. workshop on de- Well-known type designer John veloping an internationalized Android content in these languages, input Hudson delivered the conference app. Presentations on Indic language tool design issues and lack of NLP keynote, presenting a humorous yet complexities traced the origins components. in-depth view into the complexities of modern Indic language scripts Overall, the conference provided of text encoding and typography. He such as Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil an opportunity for leaders of the promoted the idea that the Unicode and Tibetan. These sessions also internationalization industry to Consortium works on making com- reviewed typological and ortho- collaborate in real-time and helped plex script encoding more intuitive graphic nuances of Indic scripts deepen internationalization in web for type design. He also described and covered current challenges in and mobile platforms by contribut- how the Indic fonts he designed cross-language Indic computing ing to and leveraging the Unicode for the Murty Library at Harvard including lack of significant online standard.

January/February 2017 11 News

Resources to the broader field of quality management. “Building a Globally Integrated Organization” outlines Translation API Class and Cases Project the magnitude of the problem based on hard data, the rea- The Globalization and Localization Association, TAUS sons why localization teams end up with enterprise-wide and LTC have launched a joint project called TAPICC responsibility for globalization, how they can create space (Translation API Classes and Cases) and issued a call for for other teams to improve and ways to prioritize the groups participation. The aim of the collaboration is to provide a that need help first. standard that makes systems and agents interoperable on “Effective Market Segmentation” covers segmenta- a basic level, leaving room for further sophistication and tion defined and includes recommendations and related advanced proprietary functionality on top. research. Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) www.gala-global.org “Expanding Global Customer Experience” identifies 58 best TAUS http://taus.net practices, in nine facets of global customer experience, derived LTC www.ltcinnovates.com from 150 major brand websites with 25 or more languages. Common Sense Advisory, Inc. www.commonsenseadvisory.com Industry-related reports Common Sense Advisory, Inc., an independent market People research firm specializing in the language service industry, has published several new reports. “Understanding Trans- Recent industry hires lation Quality” examines different definitions of transla- ■■ lidolang specialist translations has hired Anna Karina tion quality, presents a definition for translation quality Kosek as vendor manager. that unifies various aspects and discusses how they relate lidolang specialist translations www.lidolang.com

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12 January/February 2017 News

■■ Iconic Translation Machines Ltd. has hired Rohit Translavic rebrands Gupta as machine translation scientist. Translavic BV, a translation service provider specializing Iconic Translation Machines Ltd. http://iconictranslation.com in Eastern European languages, has rebranded with a new ■■ Commit has hired Christina Helmke as account man- logo, corporate identity and website. ager for its San Diego, California, office. Translavic BV www.translavic.eu Commit www.commit-global.com ■■ Eurotranslate has hired Gordana Djordjevic as a sales 1-StopAsia opens Bulgarian office representative. 1-StopAsia, a provider of Asian language services, has Eurotranslate http://eurotranslate.rs opened an office in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. 1-StopAsia www.1stopasia.com

Business Straker acquires Eurotext Translations Kaleidoscope rebrands Straker Translations, a cloud-enabled translation services Kaleidoscope GmbH, a multilingual product manage- provider, has acquired Dublin-based Eurotext Translations. ment company, has rebranded and has reorganized and Straker Translations www.strakertranslations.com moved all four brands into a single office building in Eurotext Translations www.eurotext.ie Vienna, Austria. Kaleidoscope GmbH www.kaleidoscope.at Products and Services Ocean Translations redesigns website Omniscien media industry-related solution Ocean Translations, a provider of communications so- Omniscien Technologies, a developer of automated lutions, has unveiled its redesigned website with content translation technology, has added an integrated media available in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. industry solution for the subtitling of audiovisual content Ocean Translations www.oceantranslations.com to the latest version of Language Studio Cloud. Omniscien Technologies https://omniscien.com Jonckers now in Manchester Jonckers, a global communications company, has opened XTM Cloud v10 a new office in Manchester, England. Business unit direc- XTM International, a developer of XML authoring and tor, Chiara Raimondo, will be head of the new office. translation tools, has released XTM Cloud v10. The new Jonckers www.jonckers.com version introduces a refreshed interface, built-in mes- senger, customization of project listing, storing language

A thousand different workflows.One Solution. The Business Management Solution for the Translation Industry

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January/February 2017 13 News

quality assurance results against the linguist and machine quality and compare bilingual files of various formats. translation data anonymization. Protemos www.protemos.com XTM International www.xtm-intl.com checkTerm KantanLQR update, profile alias feature Kaleidoscope GmbH, a multilingual product manage- KantanMT, a subscription-based machine translation ment company, has introduced checkTerm. The language service, has announced that its online language quality checking tool verifies the terminological correctness of review tool KantanLQR now supports Multidimensional any content or translation and identifies incorrect vari- Quality Metrics (MQM) framework. ants, forms and compositions. KantanMT has also added a profile alias feature to its Kaleidoscope GmbH www.kaleidoscope.at machine translation platform to enable users to group multiple KantanMT engines from the same domain or DQF Plugins for SDL Trados Studio and content type. WorldServer KantanMT http://kantanmt.com TAUS has released new dynamic quality framework (DQF) plugins for Trados Studio and WorldServer SDL, Applanga automated screenshot uploader translation technologies by SDL, a provider of global cus- Mbaas Development GmbH has added an in-context tomer experience management. The new plugins support translate, edit, proofread, review feature to Applanga, a productivity tracking and quality review based on DQF cloud-based platform designed to automate the process of and multidimensional quality metrics error typology. localizing apps. The new feature is an automated screen- TAUS http://taus.net shot uploader for mobile apps that shows translators and testers exactly which string they are working on with WIPO neural machine translation tool context. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Mbaas Development GmbH https://applanga.com has developed a neural machine translation tool intended to render technical patent documents into a second lan- TQAuditor guage in a style and syntax that more closely mirrors com- Protemos LLC, the company behind the ChangeTracker mon usage. translation editing platform, has released TQAuditor, de- World Intellectual Property Organization www.wipo.int signed to allow agencies to assess and monitor translation

www.star-group.net Thinking about the next connecting your visions, technologies and customers step in your career? Discover the latest localization and STAR solutions STAR services language industry job openings at multilingual.com/career-opportunities Information Management GRIPS Information Creation © STAR Group Interactive Semantic Content 4DQuery Process Automation Corporate Process Management STAR CPM Automatic Publication Corporate Language Management STAR CLM Content Engineering Authoring Assistance MindReader Translation E-mail Assistance MindReader for Outlook Software Localization Translation and Localization Transit Desktop Publishing Terminology Management TermStar E-Learning Webbased Terminology WebTerm Consulting Corporate Machine Translation STAR MT IT-Services Online Translation Reviewing STAR WebCheck Training & System Introduction Data Quality FormatChecker

14 January/February 2017 Calendar

January 2017 Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey http://sites.miis.edu/montereyforum2017 MLA 2017 January 5-8, 2017, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA MadWorld 2017 Modern Language Association of America, www.mla.org/Convention/MLA-2017 April 2-5, 2017, San Diego, California USA MadCap Software, Inc., www.madcapsoftware.com/events/madworld

February 1st World Congress on Translation Studies Together 2017 April 10-14, 2017, Nanterre, France February 23-24, 2017, Berlin, Germany French Society for Translation Studies, http://cmt.u-paris10.fr/cmt2016 Elia (European Language Industry Association), www.elia-association.org/Together 12th EUATC International Conference 6th Bremen Symposium April 20-21, 2017, Berlin, Germany February 24-25, 2017, Bremen, Germany European Union of Associations of Translation Companies University of Bremen http://euatc.org/conference www.fremdsprachenzentrum-bremen.de/2126.0.html?&L=1 SpeechTEK 2017 LocWorld Shenzhen April 24-26, 2017, Washington, DC USA February 28-March 2, 2017, Shenzhen, China Information Today, Inc., www.speechtek.com/2017 Localization World, Ltd., www.locworld.com May March ND Focus —­ Elia’s networking 8th International Conference of the Iberian days for Executives Association of Translation and Interpreting May 4-5, 2017, Chania, Crete March 8-10, 2017, Madrid, Spain European Language Industry Association, www.elia-ndfocus.org University of Alcalá, AIETI Association, http://aieti8.com/en/presentation BP17 Translation Conference The Translation and May 4-6, 2017, Budapest, Hungary Localization Conference 2017 Csaba Bán, http://bp17conf.com March 24-25, 2017, Warsaw, Poland TLC Conferences Association, www.translation-conference.com ITI Conference 2017 May 18-20, 2017, Cardiff, UK GALA 2017 Institute of Translation & Interpreting, http://iti-conference.org.uk March 26-29, 2017, Amsterdam, Netherlands Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) 21st Nordic Conference on www.gala-global.org/conference-2017-amsterdam Computational Linguistics May 22-24, 2017, Gothenburg, Sweden 8th Annual International Language Bank of Sweden, http://nodalida2017.se Translation Conference March 27-28, 2017, Doha, Qatar Translation Forum Russia Translation and Interpreting Institute May 26-28, 2017, Ufa, Russia http://tii.qa/8th-annual-international-translation-conference Business Bureau of the Association of Interpreters http://tconference.ru Intelligent Content Conference March 28-30, 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada USA Content Marketing Institute, www.intelligentcontentconference.com June LocWorld Barcelona June 14-16, 2017, Barcelona, Spain April Localization World, Ltd., www.locworld.com Monterey Forum 2017 April 1-2, 2017, Monterey, California USA

January/February 2017 15 Review

Plunet 6.2 to 6.3 to 7.0 Something good for everyone

Richard Sikes

Richard Sikes is cofounder and a principal consultant of Localization Flow Technologies. He has been immersed in localization since 1989. His current focus is on translation technologies and industry best practices. He is closely associated with Content Rules as a senior linguistic consultant.

Plunet was one of the first companies to create standalone translation business management software. In fact, it could be said that they single-handedly developed the market since their introduction of the first Plunet software version in 2003. Plunet BusinessManager 7.0 This genre of product transcends project workflow to include Operating system: All Microsoft Windows operating systems (x86 and x64). customer relationship management functionality, marketing Recommended: Windows Server 2012R2. support, financial management and reporting. Yet Plunet has Browser: Optimized for Microsoft Internet never been positioned to be all things to all users. For exam- Explorer 8 or higher. All prices on request. ple, Plunet doesn’t include translation memory functionality, nor does it pretend to be a fully-featured accounting package. line with “classical” menu design. Such intuitive- These speciality functions are left to speciality products. Instead, ness might be a by-product of users’ familiarity Plunet takes the role of maître d’, guiding users to a smörgåsbord of with long-standing generic software designs, options and overseeing delivery by individual contributors. Plunet has but many users surely found themselves closer focused on connectivity to specialized products so that customers are to their comfort zone. That said, the company at liberty to choose the technology mix that best suits their needs. isn’t without a certain Teutonic stubbornness Plunet’s long history in standalone translation business manage- about certain core design issues. ment software is an advantage and a disadvantage. The product has There comes a time in the life cycle of reached a state of robustness and maturity that is unrivaled within every software product when the design- the segment, and the company has benefited from customer input ers have to go back to the drawing board to extending over years. On the other hand, aspects of Plunet’s user take a good hard look at what they have cre- interface (UI) have been a source of criticism even among long-time ated. First-mover products that boldly create proponents of the software. Newer entrants to the market have had application categories are no exception. Early the advantage of learning from Plunet’s design. This has allowed architectural decisions become dated as mar- them to create intuitively compelling user interfaces. But, let’s not ket categories mature. Competitive products fall into the trap of judging a book only by its cover. appear, leveraging the pioneered concepts As Plunet has matured, the architects have chosen to take an evolu- on top of newer technological bases. Some- tionary approach to rectifying perceived deficiencies. Plunet’s evolution times originally hot technological substruc- reflects a mix of architectural vision and incorporation of user feedback. tures themselves become obsolete through The 6.2 version, for example, replaced the middle row of three horizontal acquisition by competitors and subsequent rows of menu choices with drop-down menus. Many users might have sunsetting by the acquiring company. Thus, deemed this structure as being more intuitive because it was more in assumptions about technological longevity

16 January/February 2017 Review

Figure 1: Suppliers now can be granted the right to upload invoices from third-party accounting systems. can turn out to be wrong or, in some The Plunet 7.0 release represents This feature may be old news, but it cases, even impose severe limitations the fruits of an introspective period hasn’t been covered in a review. The on a product’s ongoing viability. Con- in which the product designers feature is important because it is very sumer tastes are subject to change looked primarily at how they could different than in predecessor Plunet and operating environments evolve. make the product more robust and versions. Furthermore, it’s central to Anyone reading this magazine has responsive. Such changes are good project managers’ interaction with certainly witnessed the increased news for Plunet users. They also cre- Plunet. The feature is the Job page. availability of high-speed internet. ate challenges for me as the reviewer. To understand the significance of the Increased expectations in application For example, increase in speed is change, you need to look at previous performance speed and reaction time both subjective to the user and a versions of the software. One long- have been a natural corollary. function of exogenous variables such standing criticism of Plunet’s interface Companies such as Plunet have as overall internet traffic. In absence paradigm has been the necessity to to navigate carefully to survive and of a capability for more scientific scroll vertically through tall pages to thrive. And they have to be willing to measurement, I am relying largely on reach individual sections where user look inward when necessary. Not all anecdotal evidence and some theo- input is performed. Many versions ago, of the aforementioned changes have retical projection of what ought to these sections would dynamically jump directly impacted Plunet, but some be perceived performance improve- to the top of the page when a link in of them have. Some of them have ment, given certain circumstances. the third menu row was clicked. This affected competitive products in the With those caveats behind us, let’s caused user confusion. At some point, translation workflow space. Not every begin with one important and vis- Plunet changed these links to quick- competitor has survived. Plunet has. ible feature that was implemented scroll vertically to the relevant sec- And it has thrived and grown. in the 6.3 version and remains in 7.0. tion, which was a real improvement.

January/February 2017 17 Review

Nevertheless, users — especially new jobs was called a Job Chain. Plunet One of the reasons for Plunet’s users — would get lost on the page has now adopted the more generally success has been its agnostic view and lose context. Users would have to understood term Workflow to express of companion translation memory scroll back up to see where they were, this concept. Accordingly, Workflows technologies. Listing the entire range then scroll back down to where they are now defined in Workflow Tem- of supported translation management wanted to be. All this scrolling costs plates. This terminology also frees (TM) systems would exceed the scope time and brainpower that would be Plunet from the linearity implied by of this review. But it’s important to better devoted to other action items. a chain of jobs. The workflow nam- note that, already in 6.3, extensive Nowhere in the Plunet UI was this ing convention is more evocative of GroupShare support was added to scrolling more problematic and critical real-world translation processes that the palette of choices. Plunet 7.0 fea- than in the Job pages. frequently aren’t linear in nature. tures substantial enhancements to the Plunet must be lauded for listening The newly designed Job page is Across crossGrid, including seamless to users and taking corrective action. loaded as an overlay in front of the exchange of projects between the two The Job page display has been entirely Summary view of all jobs belonging to applications. Other supported TM reworked. The reworked page was an Item (Figure 1). Although the Sum- solutions include SDL Trados Studio, one of the most compelling reasons mary view is grayed out in the back- memoQ, Memsource, and XTM. Fur- for existing users to migrate to the ground, it remains sufficiently visible thermore, among other companion 6.3 version from 6.2 or earlier when it to provide some context. This added technology enhancements, Plunet 6.3 became available early in 2016. context, combined with the new ease extended its support for memoQ in The Job page now consists of a in toggling between job information several important workflow areas. header section that remains constant panels, provides significant visual One touted area of the 6.3 version’s to provide ongoing contextual infor- improvement. Despite being pleased memoQ support was complete and mation. The page also contains four with this new functionality, some users automatic round-trip file transfer subsection panels that can be swapped may still feel somewhat limited that from Plunet to the memoQ server and out with one mouse click. The panels the Job page can’t be moved aside to on to the translation resources. The are used to display detailed informa- view more of the Summary page. This promise of fully automated file trans- tion and for user input. A smaller rect- immovability could be a technical lim- fer set a high expectation for efficiency angular icon at the top right corner itation imposed by the fact that the Job gains but, unfortunately, those hopes of the page provides quick toggling page is modal. But it can be irritating if were initially dashed. With Plunet 7.0 between the Job pages, the Order you want to take a quick peek at more and memoQ, the expectation can now Details page, and the Resource Search of the Summary view before continu- be fully met. So there’s a happy end page for any given order. ing to work on the page. Nevertheless, to the story, although the early stages Let’s clarify some Plunet terminol- the new layout is a great improvement were not so pretty. ogy. An Order consists of all deliver- over previous Plunet versions. In early releases of Plunet 6.3, the ables, including source files and their There’s a somewhat ironic twist to round-trip cycle was incomplete. Files translated counterparts, as well as Plunet’s change of dialog paradigm were transferred from Plunet to the supplemental material, such as ref- that became evident during a side- project on the memoQ server, and erence files and relevant metadata. by-side demo of Plunet and XTRF at then on from there to the transla- Within an order, there are Items. memoQfest last May. Plunet’s users tion personnel. These resources then In most cases, an Item is a language have provided feedback asking for a worked on the files and delivered pair, and each language pair may more tabbed dialog paradigm, as is them back to the memoQ server. But have multiple files associated with now evident in the Jobs page. XTRF’s that is where the automated transfer it. Items are broken down into Jobs. users complained that their tabbed stopped. Despite being designated as A Job is a single activity, essentially dialogs were confusing, and so XTRF’s “delivered” in memoQ, files didn’t get what North Americans more readily new “Smart Projects” job assignment returned from memoQ to Plunet for think of as a task. Typical Jobs are interaction is much more vertically further workflow steps. This break translation, editing and proofread- oriented. Perhaps this contrasting in the file flow meant that either the ing (TEP). Thus, the standard TEP feedback is an indicator that the ideal remote resource had to upload project workflow comprises three Jobs for UI design meets somewhere in the files to Plunet as a separate, additional each language pair that is designated middle. Or, perhaps, it just indicates task, or a project manager had to move as an Item. In Plunet versions through that whatever you do, you can never them from their storage location in the 6.3, a grouping of sequential, related please everyone! memoQ environment back to Plunet.

18 January/February 2017 Review

This nonautomated file han- Items. Individual items can be opened dling requirement might seem like quickly for editing by clicking directly a low-impact item but, in the real within them or on the Edit icon. world, getting translation resources There are many other little changes to remember to update the status sprinkled throughout the UI that of delivered files to “delivered” in make navigation quicker and more memoQ is problematic enough. Try- intuitive. One example is the new ing to convince them to consistently navigation for result lists that consist deliver files to two different applica- of multiple pages. There’s a new page tions is next to impossible. Time- navigation area that allows you to strapped project managers get very jump directly from the first to the last annoyed at having to shuffle files page, or any page in between. The around on behalf of other people. area also contains a dropdown where This extra load was a real time-robber you can set the number of results when it had to be done multiple times Figure 2: The new Jobs page launches per page. For some customers, these each day, not to mention being a as an overlay on top of the Order speed improvements alone could be a source of human error. Project man- Summary view. reason to upgrade. agers at one of my clients used this as Vendor company managers will an excuse to resist adoption of Plunet. during the training sessions and, most be pleased with several new report- The jump from 6.3 to 7.0 wasn’t a importantly, given the time to do so. In ing capabilities. Plunet 7.0 includes quantum leap with tons of whiz-bang, my experience, not that many compa- a really important key performance paradigm-shifting new features. But nies are smart enough to take such a indicator, namely Processing Time for a lot of thought and care about users proactive approach. The new online Requests. Any vendor with the capa- went into the 7.0 release. The newly help won’t completely eradicate this bility and the work ethic to respond redesigned online help is one of the problem, but it will certainly mitigate to requests quickly has a definite most visible improvements. Plunet’s it. Kudos to Plunet for their work on competitive advantage. An increase previous help system wasn’t really behalf of their end users. in response time is a clear indicator of all that helpful. Finding information Another behavioral change in Plunet several potential problems. For start- was difficult. When information was 7.0 may seem simple to some users but ers, long processing time could result found, it would tell the user what important to others. In prior versions, in lost business. It also could signal a onscreen elements were, where they individual users could choose whether shortage in staffing, or that a rebalanc- were located, but not how to use them. the details pane for contacts would be ing of responsibilities is needed. Man- The new online help includes a “How open or closed when a customer or agement needs to monitor response to” FAQ section that describes many resource page was loaded. Some Plunet times to ensure that their resources common tasks. This addition is really deployments contain customers with are performing well in this area. important. Although Plunet provides hundreds of contacts. Loading the cus- Company management will also be training for new deployments, project tomer page with the details panes open pleased to discover that additional flex- managers, who are generally an over- for every contact resulted in extremely ibility in filtering of queries has been loaded cohort, typically don’t practice long load times. Plunet’s having to added in 7.0. This flexibility improves what they have learned in the sessions. render each individual pane from the granularity in the extraction of infor- The moment a training session is database caused the delay, sometimes mation from the Plunet databases. complete, they go back to their regu- exacerbated by heavy network traffic. Project managers can now assign lar duties. That is, if they haven’t been This behavior frustrated users. multiple jobs to one service provider in double-tasking throughout the train- As of Plunet 7.0, the Customer a single step. Previously, jobs had to be ing session. After the training series is page opens with the individual details assigned individually, even if they were finished, few resources remember how panes closed by default. On Order going to the same provider, and an email to accomplish even the simplest tasks. pages, Items also now loaded first in for each assignment was sent. Now, This forgetfulness isn’t Plunet’s fault, read-only mode. Loading pages with one email can be sent that includes all but it’s a recurring, real-world issue. subsections closed or set to read-only jobs assigned to the provider. Multiple Smart companies appoint a product reduces page loading times, especially assignment is especially relevant when champion who is tasked with learning when customer contact lists are very the assignee is a subvendor that pro- and retaining the knowledge gleaned long, or when Orders consist of many vides multiple services. An example is

January/February 2017 19 Review

a single-language vendor that provides But it rests on an assumption that net, they had no ability to delete it, for translation, editing and proofing tasks isn’t necessarily real-world, which example, if they made a mistake. A for the assigned language. is that the external providers work project manager had to do so. There’s an industry trend to allow exclusively for one company. Many, The 7.0 release includes a new customers more access into the if not most, such providers have template that simplifies cumulative translation process, particularly in multiple customers. Therefore, they invoices. This functionality is helpful the area of review. Customers of lan- can’t conveniently use Plunet as their to LSPs that invoice once per month guage service providers (LSPs) that central invoicing system, especially for multiple orders. It’s accomplished upgraded to version 6.3 were surely in taxation environments that strictly by new flags that enable invoicing happy to discover that they could be enforce numerical consistency for templates to accumulate order totals incorporated into projects as external invoices. The 7.0 release gives suppli- onto a single invoice without the cor- resources. Previously, it was possible, ers freedom to use Plunet to upload responding line item detail. Previously, but not elegant, to give customers invoices generated by other applica- only experienced template builders access to projects because they could tions (Figure 2). This freedom keeps could create this functionality, and it then see data that most vendors pre- invoicing information, even from an was quite kludgy, to say the least. The fer to keep confidential. external application, together with the new, consolidated invoicing format Since Plunet’s early versions, sub- underlying project data, so it’s easier greatly reduces invoice page counts. suppliers such as freelancers could all around for resources in the pay- The old format remains available if use their portal access to create their ment chain. The new right also allows more detailed invoices are required. invoices directly using project data. providers to delete invoices that they Enhanced support for cost cen- From the perspective of project data have created. Previously, if an invoice ter delineation is loosely associated consistency, this practice is useful. was created by a provider within Plu- with this use case. One of my clients consistently receives upward of 500 orders per month from one cus- tomer with two cost centers and over 100 requesters. Previously, creating cumulative invoices for each cost “German. With center meant using custom text block filtering. Cost centers can now be linear precision, associated with a customer contact profile, their address, or both. When and between the contact creates a request, the cost center is automatically added to the request in an editable field, and prop- the lines.” agated throughout the remainder of the order documentation. Because the field is editable, the contact is free to overwrite the cost center pre- sented by default when creating the Karoline request. Automatic assignment of Rheinschrift team cost centers by requester will reduce the potential for human error and accelerate the invoicing process. My client is going to love this feature! The Plunet 7.0 release quietly layers numerous little usability improve- Our team brings to German methodology ments on top of the 6.3 release. There a world-class flexibility. Measurable success are few highly visible, sweeping for more than 20 years! LANGUAGE SERVICES changes, but a plethora of “little some- things” for everyone. It appears to be a Made in Germany – since 1995 | Tel: +49 (0)221 801 928-0 | rheinschrift.de very solid release, one to which Plunet customers are advised to update. [M]

20 January/February 2017

Column Perspectives Lessons from the new TAUS Translation Technology Landscape Report Attila Görög Attila Görög specializes in post-editing machine translation, terminology, quality evaluation, stan- dardization and the reuse of translation material. He is currently a product manager at TAUS.

As a teenage boy, I remember reinventing the wheel a couple of gap show that some of us are still times. One of these "reinventions" was translation memory tech- rather skeptical about new findings and nology. As an aspiring translator back in the 1990s, I was dreaming inventions in translation technology of computer software that would recycle translated segments and today. Still and precisely because of recognize translatable words from a digital dictionary. Only years the new hype around NMT more and more companies (language service later, as a university student, did I realize that my invention already providers mainly but also some buyers) existed. To my great disappointment, Trados was widely used and are now considering the possibility of its technology was very well developed. Although adaptive machine giving machine translation a second translation (MT), in-context exact matches and predictive typing try. This is good news for translation were still to come, developments in the 1980s and 1990s opened up technology providers, for consultants, the door for a century characterized by technological inventions hopefully also for translators and, after — and the translation industry was not an exception. It was still a all, good news for the whole industry. time of transition, the early days of a new era: Google Translate was The first section of the report is a historical overview of the translation not yet conceived and when typing CAT tools in a search engine, it technology sector, exploring the asked whether you meant CAD (computer-aided design) tools. changes and the challenges of the Our industry has been doing a pretty bad job in objectively educat- industry in a six-decade overview. ing newcomers about existing tools and technologies. To start with, The next section offers a more books, reference material and eLearning courses on the subject are in-depth analysis of the sector offer- scarce — for example, there’s nothing to be found on Coursera. What's ing a categorization of tools and more, only a few universities apply translation technology to their technologies. It is interesting to see teaching in the translation classroom. And the attendance at industry that in our current decade already, events of translation students, newbies and startups is negligible. more new technologies have been The current TAUS Translation Technology Landscape Report published released than in the three previous in October 2016 is a total remake of a previous edition with the same title decades altogether, and that Europe is published by TAUS in 2013. That previous, 70-page work covering the leading the technology innovation in global translation technology sector has now been completely updated and our industry with more than half of the extended. The raison d'être of this latest edition is the emergence of several tools described in the report. The 82 new trends and technologies. Yet the report is not complete, and of course tool profiles contain well-established it cannot be. The landscape is ever-changing with many technology startups solutions versus the latest technologies: coming and going. So, a number of tools are missing from this report and machine translation technology, quality it is probably better this way. The technologies that count are there. assurance tools, translation memory The latest discussions around neural machine translation (NMT) and the tools, globalization and translation negative buzz Google received for its "bold statements" on bridging a certain management systems and so on.

22 January/February 2017 Column

Finally, the trend section deals is lagging behind when it comes to very much out of reach for software, with the current technological making intelligent use of the collected at least in the near future. According trends that are expected to play data. Other industries (such as the to the report, the role of professional a major role in the evolution of travel industry) made the switch to translators will not vanish, but it the translation industry. Some data-driven decision making a decade will evolve through technology. trends, such as NMT, have just left ago. In our industry, using dashboards In the section on cloud technology the restricted circles of academic to monitor every single data point we read that more and more busi- research and are entering the in the translation supply chain is a nesses are migrating to the cloud. To commercial arena while others, privilege of the few. Apart from some meet their needs, a growing number like cloud, have been underway for large enterprises, most buyers and of cloud-based solutions are being some time now and have reached vendors of translation services still built, producing high value, vertically the plateau of productivity. use intuition or rely on very limited focused solutions. The report esti- Trends data sets to make business decisions. mates that 90% of new software appli- The questions that occur now cations will be deployed in the cloud. The section on trends can also be are how to aggregate the collected The TAUS report also predicts viewed as a crash-course on the five data, how to interpret the results that the current spree of startups main trends that will dominate the and how to improve and even try in translation technology is only years to come: 1. The cloud will become to automate various processes the beginning of what we can pervasive 2. Translation gets datafied 3. based on this data. This new trend expect when convergence comes MT marries with artificial intelligence unavoidably leads to dashboards, to full maturity. Translation (AI) 4. Translation quality becomes benchmarking and machine learning. will become available on every quantified and benchmarked and 5. Another trend is MT empowered screen, in every app and on every Speech-to-speech translation will by new methods originating in AI. signboard in the coming years. become an alternative to text translation. Today, more than 99% of all transla- In previous decades translation In all the trends described in the tions are produced by MT engines. technology was concentrated on report, data plays an important role. MT is invisible but at the same time productivity gains in the area We are becoming more and more it is everywhere. To the question of of user documentation. In the data-driven. There are many data whether or not this means the end of convergence era we will see a rapid points to be harvested and analyzed the translation profession, the report expansion of translation technol- in various stages of the translation answers with “not yet.” Although ogy categories with, for instance, process. The 82 translation technolo- futurologists like Ray Kurzweil predict proxy-based translation platforms gies profiled in the report potentially human levels of translation quality by for easy translation of websites, record time spent on segments, the year 2029, the computer scientists dedicated tools for localization of keystrokes, edits, error annotations, TAUS interviewed could not confirm mobile apps, tools for translation time stamps and so on — all the infor- this claim. Despite the amazing pace of of subtitling and community-trans- mation needed to create meaningful technology development, true mastery lation platforms for translation reports. Still, the translation industry of language is going to remain of user-generated content. [M]

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January/February 2017 23 Column Perspectives

Pharma, the next Brexit drama? Luke Sewell Luke Sewell has a background in medical writing and biology. He now works for LatinLink.com providing innovative scientific translation solutions in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.

Since the Brexit referendum, it seems that not a single week can pass without markets shifting wildly based on any tiny clues Theresa May, the UK’s new Prime Minister, gives away on how the pending Brexit looks to her and the likely impact this will have on industry.

With the volatility of the pound resem- bling an emerging currency, and the tone on immigration approaching extreme, you would be forgiven for thinking that by now London was a deserted, barren place with just a few lone local businesses scrambling for the last few pounds. In reality, the future is still bright both for the UK pharmaceutical and language service market despite the mid-term uncertainties. The UK is home to four of the top ten global universities even though the UK represents just 0.16% of global land mass. 20% of the world’s biggest selling drugs UK-based pharmaceutical company were developed in the UK. The UK is home to the fifth and sixth has seen their share price rise largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — all underpinned considerably in pounds recently. by a strong economy, legal structure and international language. GlaxoSmithKline's share price is up With knowledge, skills, infrastructure and legal system all concen- 20% since the vote, and announced trated in such a small area, and now at a discount, it is no wonder that in July a £275 million investment, investment plans in the pharmaceutical industry have not drastically citing that the country “remains” shifted. The short-term investment outlook has become more attractive attractive despite the Brexit vote. with the low-cost pound and hopefully as soon as the details of Brexit The company did note that this have been agreed, the long term will be clarified. The reality is that any was based on the skilled workforce,

24 January/February 2017 Column

something that will remain in operations for many pharma European Economic Area member place along with the education companies currently in the UK. states with thriving pharmaceutical institutions. It is arguable that It is not just industry voicing industries. This may come at some Brexit will allow a greater inflow of concerns. A report on June 11 cost to the independence of the non-EU migrants and an increase (before the referendum) by the National Institute for Health and in the level of global highly House of Commons Science and Care Excellence. The exact nature skilled migrants may be possible. Technology Committee said that of this plan remains to be seen. Focusing resource recruitment the current collaborative manner The underlying issue is that talk on America, the Commonwealth in which research and intellectual of investment, corporate strategy, or the rest of the world will property are managed help foster growth and even jobs in recent become easier with a decrease in “EU wide collaborations, with times has applied only to London immigration pressure on them. medicines and medical technolo- and the South East of England. There are a few potential gies able to be sold across Europe” Herein lies the government’s pol- regulatory issues on the horizon, would be at great risk following icy problems and the reason why the EMA (European Medicines exit from the EU. Furthermore, so many voted on emotion over Agency, based in London) cur- they cited concern that half economics — they felt detached. rently handles regulatory issues of the UK’s approximately £21 How do you convince the for the industry and the UK may billion of pharmaceutical exports economically disconnected that stand to lose its reputation as go to the EU. The government your plan to develop the economy the regulatory center once out recommend contingency plans to is the plan to vote for? This of the EU. The advantage of this cover any detrimental effects of involves increasing immigration, may be that it will have more leaving the EU, plans we are yet and international players basing power over budget control and to hear the details of. A note of their headquarters and opera- how research funding is spent. caution, however: this report was tions in the UK, with the greater The EU has some heavy phar- launched before the referendum goal of raising tax revenues and maceutical and medicine regula- by a government campaigning employment for UK citizens. It tion, including the cumbersome for the remain camp; the political is the last two points that are clinical trials directive, conducting neutrality of the report could open to debate. What kinds of a clinical trial has since become therefore be brought into question. jobs have been created, and how prohibitively expensive allowing One further recurring worry on much tax is being paid? Leavers access only to large pharmaceuti- Brexit is the EU funding into the voted against the status quo, a cal companies and squeezing UK higher education and science change to business as usual. out academic research or small programs. The UK is a net recipi- Brexit is a phenotype of the and medium-sized business. At ent of EU research funding. How- wider developed world problem of its most extreme, according to ever, the Horizon 2020 program how to balance increased global- The Pharmaceutical Journal the also applies to non-EU countries, ization, immigration and inequal- decision to overregulate the bio- so one would hope this would ity with political stability. These technology sector has led one firm be maintained upon exit. are the same forces that promoted to relocate to the United States. Moving forward the govern- Donald Trump; the British are just Despite aspects to be quietly ment’s options include looking for the first to formally take this on positive about, the Association Mutual Recognitions Agreements within a defined political frame- of the British Pharmaceutical with the EU to allow conformity work. By playing lip service to Industry did voice its concerns fol- of certificates. This is essentially the demands of the economically lowing the vote, citing “immediate the model for Switzerland and disconnected on immigration and challenges for future investment, effectively enacts EU law into leaving the EU, May’s hope is that research and jobs.” Following Swiss law. The Swiss have noted she will gain political momentum the vote they also cite that the that as regulatory dynamism while maintaining the status quo UK “runs the risk of losing its increases, so has the difficultly in on the economy and tax revenues. attractiveness first-tier launch to keeping both systems in pace. The question whether this can market” as well as suffering the The solution for the UK appears be achieved remains to be seen. relocation of the aforementioned to be following a unique path The future is still unclear as to EMA and the pharmacovigilance influenced by the successes of other what is in store for the UK. As the

January/February 2017 25 Column

markets plunge into the vacuum of and the increasing global nature of uncertainty, most large companies business increasingly mean that this will continue business as usual force is beyond the power of local taking advantages of any dips in governments. Industry is not fixed the market. With the long-term to one set of laws, and especially hope that the government will with easily globalized online services not self-destruct anytime soon, such as translation, its inherent it is likely that once the panic is light-footedness allows it to continue over — certainty restored and to grow despite local market regulatory matters resolved — at uncertainty. As globalization and the worst the end impact on UK pharmaceutical industry grow across language service providers the world, qualified medical transla- (LSPs) will be nothing more than tion specialists will grow in demand, a few more work visas being regardless of local politics. At worst required for their EU workers. a local government can cause a shift At this year’s Association of in headquarters or resources to a Translation Companies’ (ATC) more industry friendly environment. conference in London, the underly- Real power, it could be perceived, ing tone about the future of the still lies with industry and their industry was economically positive. inherent ability to evaluate, adapt However, as an industry we work and move rather than bend to local globally and despite good business demands. In the globalized age, only prospects there were undertones a global, organized and concerted of deep individual political regret effort to wipe out a specific industry over the decision. Confidence in would be successful in diminishing the government’s ability to negoti- its global long-term outlook. The ate a reformed relationship with actions of a single country can only the EU remained high with an at worst create short-term logistical understandable level of concern and cost issues. With all the above over the uncertainty. Industry in mind, companies are taking a market research points to growth wait-and-see attitude while plan- in the language service market as ning for all eventualities from well as in the scientific translation government negotiations, hoping arena. Given the skilled UK work- that the status quo can continue. force coupled with the industry’s The long-term impact of this strong march forward the outlook decision waits to be seen. However, is positive for medical translation the UK has a long-proven history regardless of the uncertain mid- of adapting to changes, there term local political landscape. is a hope that outside the EU In terms of UK LSPs, our the UK can develop even more country’s strong history of profes- strongly its position as a world sionalism, motivated workforce, leading space for innovation unparalleled education and the and science through new and home of the world’s business lan- improved systems of immigration, guage English are all at a large dis- policy, funding, regulation and count to any international buyers. connected institutions. Regardless Along with all the other exporters of the confusion, the world and this will provide a valued boost its industries will move on, UK during this time of uncertainty. LSPs will need to look to the wider It should be remembered that world more than ever, and keep its the inexorable globalization of the open-minded, adaptive and forward world’s pharmaceutical industry thinking culture strong. [M]

26 Column Community Lives

Mojito: birth of a new community

Jeannette Stewart Jeannette Stewart is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a translation company for life sciences. An advocate for the language industry, she founded Translation Commons, a nonprofit online platform facilitating community collaboration.

Communities don't just spring to life with thousands of mem- and emails. The Japanese term bers and well-defined goals and the resources to implement them. mojibake, which is used to indicate Communities grow from modest beginnings, morphing and taking corrupted characters, was what on their own identity as they evolve. Fortunately, in our industry, led to the name Team Moji and we have a newly-formed community that makes an ideal case consequently Mojito. study to help us understand just how the processes of develop- Team Moji was tasked with ment can start and take shape. I'm referring to Mojito, a continu- responding to the question, “How do ous localization application developed by Box, the online file you localize continuously without sharing and content management platform. In this case, the germ compromising the integrity of your apps or breaking your development of the envisioned community is a small, dedicated team of highly process?” The answer seemed to lie talented developers in Box, Team Moji. in the choice between buying an Mojito started as a Box internal hackathon project in August 2014. It existing app or building one. The was first built on top of an old system to automate recurring manual tasks problem with buying software is that such as downloading and uploading strings and exchanging them with you are vulnerable to dependencies. vendors. Licenses, as anyone in the language Since then, the team has expanded the product definition of Mojito industry knows, can be burdensome. and decided to build a standalone application to support the entire Prices and constant updates can be a software localization process at Box. By December 2015, Mojito sup- headache. Even worse, users do not ported Box’s webapp application. By February 2016, Mojito was already always have full control over their supporting all Box products. In February 2016 Mojito went through a own work. Consequently, when the refinement process with the aim of being open sourced. The open source team examined the feasibility of Mojito was launched in August 2016. Open source has been a part of the building their own app, the positives Box technology stack since the company's earliest days in 2005 and in in this solution soon became appar- 2014 Box launched opensource.box.com to host all of their projects. ent. Box is global in its operations First things first: the name. I was surprised to learn that Mojito owes and they were already active in the nothing to its namesake, the Cuban cocktail. The name is derived from localization community. The beauty the team’s name, which is Moji. Box’s globalization effort was launched of sharing in a community is that you in Japan and moji is Japanese for character. We all know this from the learn. You also teach and that open now ubiquitous and Unicode-approved emoji we use in our messages cooperation had an irresistible appeal.

January/February 2017 27 Column

just a hackathon project.” But this Products Content Translator was just a beginning and the team took the impetus and with much additional effort has designed and implemented a solid platform. Team Moji mobile engineering team The diversity of the Mojito build team of senior software engineers has, it seems, contributed to ensur- web app ing that Mojito meets the needs of engineering team vendor a global community of users. But it l10n PM vendor PM engineering team all started with a small, dedicated team of Box employees coming from diverse backgrounds. desktop engineering team Will Yau, senior software engi- neer, has been at Box for over four years now and open-sourcing Mojito Figure 1: Pre-Mojito workflow. Here, PM stands for project manager. has been an important milestone for him. He accidentally found himself to be one of the founding As they grasped just how much of these is rapid prototyping and members of this globalization team other companies could benefit, it this in turn has led to the advent at Box when asked to help Box tackle logically led to the decision to open of hackathons. These events, international growth. Yau seized the source the tool. now popular fixtures in software opportunity and realized how much Open source is, of course, now communities, are held regularly to working in globalization resonates itself a global phenomenon with facilitate intensive collaboration within him. “Looking at how my a long track record of enabling amongst a number of specialists parents would use modern-day all manner of computer-based with the aim of creating new software, if Chinese is not available activities. It may not be the universal products and services. With little to them, there is no way they can panacea that its evangelists pro- more elaborate a requirement than use it.” Such personal motivation claim, but the benefits of inviting creating a continuous localiza- seems to pervade Team Moji. Yau gifted collaborators to share in the tion platform, senior software adds, “At Box, we know very well development process encourages engineer Jean Aurambault says, how much effort and dedication innovation that results in safety, “The first version of Mojito was it takes to write exceptional security and stability. Furthermore, given the multicultural and multilin- gual nature of the user community, the build option was clearly the best Products way to go. Translator Anyone who has ever had the slightest involvement in specify- continuous intergration ing software applications knows just what a headache that can be. Nailing requirements alone can be like tackling an assault course blindfold. This has been known to software professionals for decades and many methodologies and approaches to software develop- ment have been adopted to try and overcome the barriers. One Figure 2: Post-Mojito workflow (An illustration of an easy process with Mojito).

28 January/February 2017 Column

software, however, localizing Mojito has been a big part of the software should be easy. That's why journey and I am happy we finally we wanted to share Mojito with open-sourced it.” everyone. Mojito is a free tool that Hanna Kanabiajeuskaja is the is fully open sourced, and it takes localization product manager at only a few minutes to set up.” Box. Her experience in the language Jean Aurambault is a full stack industry is already varied and engineer and has been working extensive. This has given her insights on building and integrating in localization workflow that have localization tools as well as driving proved to be invaluable in making internationalization efforts to Mojito live software that delivers deliver improved global products. what it promises. Her journey He is a globetrotter, always looking brought her to the localization world for new destinations and cultures. very early in her life when at the age Getting involved in the localization of eight, she received an electronic world was an unplanned journey Tamagotchi dinosaur for Christmas. that just ended up matching his She recalls, “It was pretty easy to personal interests! It started in configure. All I needed to do is set France where he was working on a the time, and I was ready to go. I localization platform backend for was very keen on technology, and I Yahoo!. He later got the opportu- wanted to play with my new toy all nity to join the team in the United the time. But soon I started noticing States and learn more about the that my dinosaur was different from industry. When he joined Box my friends' pets. In the daytime, it three years ago, he focused more would snooze. At night, however, it on globalization but soon the need would wake me up and demand that to build a localization platform I feed it. It took me a few weeks of surfaced. “Every day, millions of terrible night sleep to realize what people use Box around the globe, was wrong. While setting the time, it was important for our team to I mixed up AM and PM. Truthfully, build a tool that would allow us to I didn't know what they were at the give users a seamless experience. time.” Since that early localization Mojito allows us to consolidate all confusion she has graduated to of our software localization efforts become a translator, interpreter, and enables us to search, edit and reviewer, terminologist and, finally, bulk-manage strings across all of localization product manager. In all our products and languages within of these roles, she became intimately one environment. Having full familiar with localization workflows control over software content is and issues that most tools don't critical no matter how big or small address. “Serving the world's largest your company is.” enterprises means that Box must Senior software engineer Adrien be localized into many different Loison has been working at Box for languages and Mojito represents a almost four years. Loison, who has simple way to continuously localize been on Box’s globalization team products and reach a global user from its creation, felt dissatisfied base,” said Kanabiajeuskaja. with the French version and sought Jee Yi, senior software engineer, to bring it up to the same quality as joined Box in January 2016 and also English. “Although I had no previous brings the same driving commitment experience with globalization, I was to meet the needs of software to excited to get other languages to the dissolve language barriers allowing same quality as English. Building free communication. She expresses

29 Column

another uniting factor in the team ment resources. It’s impossible to product fit for purpose and able to be with her enthusiastic support of envisage today’s business and cultural refitted for other users’ needs. making Mojito open source. Her environments without the benefits For those unfamiliar with the family immigrated to the US when of widespread automation. Transla- localization process, the goal is she was 14 years old. Growing up in tors are all too aware of this and the to run an application as if it were Silicon Valley naturally led her into advent of localization engineering created for a specific culture by a software engineering career. Her has spawned many tools to assist in someone from that culture. A good first globalization experience came the process. Where does Mojito fit in translator is, of course, adept at when she was assigned a project the big picture of all these competing rendering a target text with much more to convert ANSI ODBC driver ventures? The simple fact is that than semantics in mind. However, in to Unicode at Hewlett Packard. most continuous localization apps this era of increasing automation, con- However, it was when she met Jean are offered by companies at a price. stant change in response to customer Aurambault when she joined Yahoo! Mojito has been designed as a foun- requirements and inadequate numbers in 2011 that she started working on dation that will cover continuous of well-trained language professionals Yahoo!'s localization platform called localization at any company and if in our community, any improvement YALA. YALA was used by localiza- it doesn’t cover their particular use in the flow of work along the supply tion project managers to manage cases, they can tailor the software chain is more than welcome. Mojito translations for all products at to their specific needs. That’s the addresses the situation in a straightfor- Yahoo!. After Aurambault left Yahoo! strength and beauty of the open ward and efficient manner. to join Box, Yi led the team to build source model. The buzzword is The difference in the localization the next version called Dragonfly. It “agile.” Given the startling diversity process before and after Mojito is was a self-serve localization platform of content that can exist in a single telling. The life cycle of a string in a built for all developers at Yahoo!. Yi business entity, companies must be manual process begins with extracting also worked on in-context review for able to adapt instantly to evolving it from the source code into a localiza- iOS using iOS simulator for which business requirements. Further- tion resource file. Resource files, of she has filed a patent. The idea of more, as the pool of commercially- course, come in a variety of formats open sourcing Mojito attracted her viable languages grows, agility must depending on the application they are to join the Box team. “Box is all at times become acrobatic to meet used for: .strings, .resx, .csv, .xml and so about helping people get their work needs. Mojito owes its existence to the on. Next, for each product, a developer done efficiently, wherever they are,” fact that Box is an enterprise company, has to export a resource file and send said Yi. “Mojito is an extension of which means that they take the initia- it to a localization project manager this mission and a result of our dedi- tive to make things happen. As they using a preferred file transfer protocol. cation to make software localization spread their commercial wings and Even if only one string was updated efforts as efficient as possible. Many cover more and more of the globe, the in the application, the entire resource engineering tasks are automated, content they generate proliferates at file has to be sent. The localization so automating localization was a a rate of knots. How then to maintain project manager sends the resource file natural choice for us.” standards of quality, reliability and to a project manager on the language The workflow security? The systems analysts who service provider (LSP) side. The LSP write up use cases (statements describ- project manager then sends the file Workflow is, of course, a much- ing how users will use technology to through preprocessing, which converts studied business process because it achieve objectives) will specify how various files into a unified format, describes repeatable patterns that goals should be reached. But Team usually XML Localization Interchange guide activities through many different Moji took a characteristically different File Format (XLIFFs). XLIFFs are files stages toward a reliable end. With approach in building Mojito by adopt- designed to allow data selected for localization workflow, the added ele- ing, to use their word, a more “holistic” translation to be passed seamlessly ment of multilingual content requires approach to solving the problems of during localization. The entire resource vigilance and accuracy to avoid those continuous localization. This enabled file goes through existing transla- aforementioned mojibake and other them to envisage their system as more tion memories (TMs). This causes glitches. than just the sum of its parts. Again, problems because if any corrections Localization has increased the the decision to open source the project were applied to any of the strings on complexity of the project life cycle was vindicated as this helped them the client side, they may be overwritten and this demands greater manage- build a clean, lightweight and scalable on the LSP side if TMs weren't synced.

30 January/February 2017 Column

The resource files are translated. In other words, it works on entire localization in a flexible and easily Another potential problem is that in multilingual projects however large configurable process. Anything that the manual process, if placeholders they are and not by individual versions Box open sources goes through a get broken, there is no way to check for each and every language. It also review process. Mojito was reviewed that automatically until the strings go allows users to manage strings across by a number of engineers to make back into the product code. Resource all repositories and languages at the sure the build that they are open files get converted back from XLIFF same time. This is very important and sourcing is stable and ready to go out into .strings, .resx, .csv, .xml and so unique to Mojito. Why is this so great? to the world. Box’s requirement is on. But as seasoned localization pros What does that mean? It means first that any application that they open know, files do become corrupted, and that the entire client team can follow source has to be stable for at least oftentimes there is no way to catch the progress of localization through six months. Mojito is downloadable the problem at this stage. If all is well, the Mojito interface. They can make from GitHub and can be used on files go back to the client localization sure that nothing is released before any system that supports Java (Mac, project manager. Developers grab the localization has been completed. Win, Linux and so on). On Mac, files and create a resource bundle, Second, an enterprise’s entire product Mojito can be installed using Brew. English plus all translated languages. portfolio can be handled in this way. If The future Finally, strings are inserted back into you want to bulk-change terminology, the product code. you can search all strings that you In an effort to raise awareness Automation is everywhere in this need to change, add a comment and of Mojito the Moji team is actively age and will only spread further and send them for retranslation. This engaging with the language industry wider as more and more laborious is much easier than scavenging hun- and presenting to various venues. tasks are computerized. Localization dreds of files for the right term and They have posted announcements is case in point as its automated life changing things manually. If you are on social media and they are answer- cycle shows. Mojito connects directly a translator and want to translate all ing questions that come to them to the repository where resource files new strings across the entire prod- through various channels. They are are stored and strings are instantly uct portfolio, you can easily surface also working with three companies selected automatically when they these strings through Workbench and a nonprofit, Translation Com- are updated. All strings throughout with just a few clicks — instead of mons, that expressed interest in using all products and languages can be going around and asking developers Mojito and helping them integrate it displayed within Mojito, where trans- whether they have added anything in their systems. lators do their work. Alternatively, new recently and then trying to find There are a few features that strings can be exported in the form new strings in the files. would add a lot of value to Mojito, of XLIFFs and sent to translators A high-level view of Mojito’s for example, extended translation to be translated offline in their own workflow for software localization workbench capabilities, advanced computer-assisted translation tools. illustrates the various stages of the translation memory leveraging, When translation is done, whether process: automated terminology checks and through Mojito Workbench or 1. Create a repository in Mojito with translation history and revision offline, strings are checked automati- a list of languages for localization. control. Team Moji encourages the cally for anything that can potentially 2. The ommandc line collects strings open source community to contrib- break the code. Corrupted strings from the source code and sends them ute to these and other features. are blocked and displayed through to Mojito ready for translation. They are fully committed to Mojito’s user interface. The Mojito 3. The localization team can trans- supporting and expanding Mojito, database is the governing TM. Mojito late online or it can be done offline but they acknowledge that it takes also protects against overwriting by sending XLIFF files to translators time to build new features well. strings if they have already been sent who can reimport them when their For now, they will monitor the for review or approved. All new strings work is done. project to make sure that Mojito are automatically pushed back to the 4. After translation, Mojito’s com- is working well for everyone in the original repository as they appear. mand-line interface is used to generate localization community, collect Mojito’s automated process is localized files and translations. feedback and answer questions. sleek and purpose-built to localize. With these resources, new and So, we are at the beginning of what Its advantages are compelling. It is updated strings are automatically promises to be a compelling story repository-based and not file-based. collected and result in continuous for some time to come. [M]

January/February 2017 31

White Paper

Translation Management for Enterprises

users specifically requested the ability to view selected proj- New XTM Cloud v10 ects quickly. They also asked for improved communication XTM Cloud v10 is here now! The new version of the award between linguists and project managers. As smart phones and winning translation management system was released to all tablets are now ever-present, a specially designed mobile app users by the end of 2016. XTM Cloud v10 is the most fea- was also a top requirement. ture-packed release ever and takes XTM to even higher levels Integration with other tools is a recurring theme that of automation, collaboration and functionality. XTM already handles well. Adding to the existing function- Refreshed interface ality, XTM Cloud v10 now includes a full integration with Interverbum’s TermWeb. Additionally, users can monitor Starting from the log-on page, users will notice a brand translation quality and performance through an integration new look and feel to XTM. The interface has been updated with the TAUS DQF dashboard. The request for extra inte- with state-of-the-art, appealing graphics, providing better grations with CMSs has been answered with new connec- contrast and clarity. Improved screen layouts with greater tors for Git and Sitecore. consistency offer improved ergonomics and an enhanced user experience. Translators said that they needed to see the meaning of inline elements at a glance, so XTM Cloud v10 gives the The main menu is now located at the top of the screen, option to display them below the current segment. releasing more space for important project data. The user’s photo can be displayed in the top right corner. The system The combination of these features, with a host of other configuration has been moved to a cog icon, which is next improvements, establishes XTM Cloud v10 at a new level to the new XTM Messenger. XTM Cloud v10 is even more of translation management. intuitive than before, so existing users will swiftly adapt to Collaboration the refreshed interface. New features The new XTM Messenger introduced in XTM Cloud v10 simplifies and accelerates the exchange of information between The new features of XTM Cloud v10 were designed in project members, which is essential for agile translation. Thanks response to very valuable customer feedback. Current XTM to XTM Messenger, teams can experience a truly enhanced

sponsored information multilingual.com/white-papers multilingual.com/whitepaper 32 January/February 2017

White Paper

level of collaboration, ask questions and receive immediate and the target document is recomposed, the confidential answers, without leaving XTM Cloud. Users can create new data is automatically reinserted into the text. chats with PMs or specific users, while the confidentiality XTM mobile apps for PMs of the user’s identity is assured by the use of nicknames. The result is that whole translation teams can communicate quickly XTM Cloud v10 is mobile ready with apps for project and safely. managers available for iOS and Android devices. Project Advanced search filter managers can use their smartphones or tablets on the go to review projects and allocate tasks. The new XTM app lists The advanced search filters give project managers a pow- projects and enables the PM to update them. It also allows erful, easy to use tool to quick communication between users and customers. Lin- perform their work. The guists can view their list of tasks. newly designed advanced It is our passion search window of XTM v10 makes finding spe- We have put a lot of effort into creating XTM Cloud v10 cific projects, such as — our award-winning translation management system. ones that are overdue or When we look back at this intensive development period, for a specific customer, a we are proud of breeze. These search cri- the product we teria can then be stored have created and as a filter which is imme- sincerely hope our diately available from the users will like it too. project listing. We are passionate Anonymization about our mission to help enterprises Many XTM users localize highly confidential text, so reach global mar- with security in mind, XTM International has developed an kets more effi- anonymization feature. This module identifies confidential ciently by creating, personal data such as names, addresses or telephone num- delivering and supporting an industry leading, easy-to-use bers, and masks them by replacing them with a placeholder. platform to automate and manage all aspects of the localiza- So when the text goes for translation, whether manual or tion process. The satisfaction we take in meeting and exceed- machine translation, there is no risk that confidential infor- ing our customers’ expectations is worth all the effort, and mation will be leaked. When the localization is complete we love it!

XTM Cloud v10 is now available as a free update. For a full list of features in XTM v10 go to https://xtm-intl.com/10. Start your free trial at: https://xtm-intl.com/trial. Contact us at: [email protected]. sponsored information sponsored information multilingual.com/white-papers

January/February 2017 33 Focus

Exploring the translation market in Russia

Konstantin Dranch works for Memsource and runs translationrating.ru, a ranking website for LSPs. Formerly a business journalist, he helped create the language service Konstantin Dranch providers' Ukrainian Translation Industry Conference.

The Russian language services market is totally In a similar way, Russian language service providers unlike its counterparts in Western Europe. It’s dif- (LSPs) that have achieved success in the domestic market ferent in terms of size, direction, business models find it difficult to get a solid foothold outside of it. Many and successful sales practices. From abroad prac- have tried, but only a handful have succeeded. Here are tically none of the global language and technology some of the reasons why. companies have managed to keep offices in Russia Market size and grow a local customer base. Instead of creat- As a language, Russian is one of the most prominent ing in-country production teams to deliver the on the internet, holding the eighth spot in total number of language, multilanguage vendors generally rely on users. However, in financial terms the market is dispropor- subcontractors or hire freelancers remotely. tionately small. It might be less than $200 million a year.

34 January/February 2017 UK France Russia

Foreign trade $1.05 trillion $1.04 trillion 530 million

Shenzhen, China Population $64 million $66 million $143 million

Market volume estimate (LSPs) $1.3+ billion $650-900 million $200 million

Figure 1: Language services market size relative to foreign trade and population. Sources: cia.gov, worldbank.org, ATC, CNET, translationrating.ru.

The latest annual research by trans- Entreprises de Traduction (CNET) lationrating.ru puts the total revenue estimates the market volume at of large LSPs at $132 million. This fig- $650 to $900 million. In the United Quality Training in ure includes comprehensive data from Kingdom, LSPs sell services and tech- company surveys, official tax registry nology worth more than $1.3 billion Localization & Global and interviews with CEOs. It features every year, according to Association Marketing not only publicly-known companies, of Translation Companies (ATC). The Register Now but also defense contractors and difference is even more striking when captive operators that normally don’t taking economy size into consider- Localization Project Management promote themselves as much. ation. For perspective, Russia’s foreign Certification: The “long tail” of the market is com- trade is roughly half that of the UK’s, Mar 2-3, 2017 Shenzhen, China prised of about 2,700 limited company yet its translation market is probably Mar 6-7, 2017 Beijing, China entities and 7,500 self-employed people seven times smaller (see Figure 1). Apr 26-27, 2017 Rosario, Argentina classified under “translators, editors Another indicator of the market Jun 12-13, 2017 Barcelona, Spain and secretaries” in the tax registry. Their volume is the size of top translation Oct 30-31, 2017 Silicon Valley, USA revenues are not disclosed, and are thus companies headquartered there. invisible, which is why the only way to Market leaders in the UK are bigger Quality Management size up that portion of the market is to than their counterparts in France, using TAUS DQF guess. My way of guessing is to multiply which in turn are bigger than the Apr 28th, 2017 Rosario, Argentina the average salary by the number of ones in Russia. There are industrious Jun 14th, 2017 Barcelona, Spain self-employed people and legal entities. and business-savvy leaders in each Localization Management This translates to $57 million. country, but they depend on a fertile Round Table Top LSPs and the long tail together and open domestic market to fully come close to $200 million as men- realize their potential. Apr 28-29, 2017 Rosario, Argentina tioned above. This figure is tiny com- The decline of the national cur- Localization Project Managers pared to markets in Western Europe. rency, the ruble, is partially respon- Round Table In France, a similar analysis con- sible for smaller trade figures. Since May 17-19, 2017 Berkeley, USA ducted with Chambre Nationale des 2014 the exchange rate has practically Oct 2017 Cologne, Germany

Global Digital Marketing and UK France Russia Localization Certificate (Online) Winter 2017 Enrollment starts SDL £266.9 m Ubiqus €70 m Janus WW $17.84 m Jan 9th, 2017 RWS £95.2 m Datawords €30 m ABBYY LS $13.5 m thebigword £47.5 m Technicis €24 m Neotech $7.14 m Brand2Global Conference Oct 2-3, 2017 Silicon Valley, USA Figure 2: Revenues for the top three companies in selected markets. Sources: annual reports, websites, Common Sense Advisory.

35 Focus

Russia's imports and exports relative to December 2013, in percentage.

Figure 3: Foreign trade is on the decline. Source: cia.gov.

been cut in half, from 32-35 to 65 Moscow-based agencies sometimes Statistics like this should be treated rubles per US dollar. take the next step and venture into with caution. They are usually based When measured in rubles, trade provinces with strong language train- on a small number of responses, volumes and business sizes look much ing schools and universities. There, because few companies agree to better, and some of them even grow. they create cost-optimized translation reveal their profitability, and among In particular, companies with a higher teams. For example, TLS opened a those that do many are smaller firms ratio of contracts with revenue denomi- production office with just under 100 with volatile performance. In addi- nated in US dollars and euros, and in-house translators in Novosibirsk a tion, French companies might be expenses in rubles, have been doing few years ago; Janus Worldwide hired spending earnings with greater zeal, quite well. Another category of growing a team of about 30 in Tomsk; ROID as the corporate income tax in France LSPs in Russia is defense contractors. went for Nizhny Novgorod and so on. is high, 33%, versus 15% in simplified This in-house translator model accounting systems in Russia. Still, the Optimizing for cost allows a company to build quality over difference is staggering. Lower turnover levels in Russian time. However, it is only feasible for In practice, rates on the internal LSPs does not mean smaller teams or translation companies that work with Russian market are lower, and Russian profitability. consistent volumes in the same set of companies need the increased level Salary levels in Russia are low in languages year after year. of profitability to stay in business. In comparison with Western Europe, Profitability of Russian translation absolute figures, not percentages, they and employers can afford to keep companies is generally higher than that would earn the same or less than their more people in the office, including of their Western counterparts. Per the French colleagues on a project of the specialist translators and editors. translationrating.ru survey, median same size. For example, if a French LSP In the United Kingdom the median earnings before interest and tax translates 100,000 words and charges gross salary for an in-house translator (EBIT) currently stands at 25.4%. Half 0.12 euros per word, and then adds on is about £20,000 - £25,000 depending of the respondents of a similar survey a 14% profit margin, they would end up on experience (or about $30,000), in France had a minimal profitability with 1,680 euros in profit. Conversely, according to the ATC survey in 2015. at around 5%, and EBIT for profitable if a Russian LSP translates 100,000 An equally qualified colleague in companies averaged 14%. An average words and charges 0.03 euros per word, Russia will get paid four times less. across official tax data yielded similar and then adds on a theoretically much Top firms in Russia employ up to results: across almost 900 companies larger 25% profit margin, they will end 150-200 people, including potentially the ratio of net results to revenue up with 750 euros in profit — less than hundreds of in-house translators. stayed within the 6-8% margin. half of the French LSP’s profit.

36 January/February 2017 Focus

When selling translation services is now present in six countries. All As things deteriorate inside the from Russia to overseas customers, Correct now has entities in Ireland, country, more entrepreneurs will be companies would charge much more, Canada and Singapore. Other top pushed to try again to find new busi- but they typically also employ more companies with overseas branches ness opportunities outside. A cost- workflows with more steps and more include ABBYY LS, TransLink and optimized single language vendor for complex quality control, driving up Palex. Others from the top 20 focus Russian and expanding geographically their cost. their efforts on optimizing their pres- from region to region works great While this is a simplified calcula- ence inside Russia and near Russian- in the domestic market. But it’s not tion, it reflects reality. LSPs in Russia speaking countries. They don’t have a a good service offering for transla- might translate millions and millions of solid foothold abroad just yet. tion buyers in Europe and the United words every year, and yet their revenue Following the growing isolation of States. They wouldn’t change suppliers stays small compared to Western Euro- Russia’s markets from the Western to gain a little economy for one or two pean firms of similar volume and staff. world, foreign trade continues to language combinations. decline. It has been dropping in volume To transition to new markets, LSPs Expanding to new markets since December 2013, and in the eight that have not yet expanded from Russia Comparison rates have always months of 2016 it is seeing a decrease to other countries will need to transform pushed Russian LSPs to expand of about 19%, as follows from the latest their business model first. This could abroad, but few succeed in becoming national statistics report (See Figure 3). be a new technology others don’t have, truly international. When foreign trade shrinks, so does the or a multilanguage vendor with a clear The largest LSP originating from need for language services. This is bad industry specialization, for example, in Russia, Janus Worldwide, derives news for translation companies that life sciences or software localization. about 50% of its revenue from cus- consider Russia their primary market. This space is extremely competitive. [ M] tomers outside of Russia. ABBYY Language Services gets about 20% of their sales from outside Russia. This includes the turnover of US-based translation company Connective Lan- guage Services acquired in 2012 and rebranded ABBYY LS USA. By comparison, top UK firms SDL and RWS are much more successful at exporting. They derive only about 15% of their revenue from home mar- kets. Datawords, one of the market Since 1986, EuroGreek has been providing high-quality, leaders in France, gains 70% of its turnkey solutions, encompassing a whole range of client revenue from overseas operations, in needs for the following language combinations and services: addition to having a very strong posi- • English to Greek • Translation & Editing tion locally. Ubiqus, one of the largest • Greek to English • Localization French language services companies, • German to Greek • Desktop Publishing is an accomplished exporter as well • French to Greek • Testing • Spanish to Greek • Subtitling & Recording (see Figure 2). While UK and French markets offer great rates, the top firms are still motivated to expand abroad. About six out of the top 20 Rus- sian companies have shown ambi- tions for international expansion. In the past two years Janus Worldwide London Office Athens Office 27 Lascotts Road 93 Karagiorga Street has opened offices in the Czech London N22 8JG · UK Athens 166 75 · Greece Republic and the UK, in addition to Tel: +44 208 881 2482 Tel: +30 210 9628 559 their US office. Logrus has opened www.eurogreek.com [email protected] up a branch in Chengdu, China, and

January/February 2017 37 Focus

A code of ethics for the Russian translation industry

Serge Gladkoff Serge Gladkoff graduated from a Russian ivy league nuclear science college, has been a deputy director for software distribu- tion company Dialogue-MEPhI, a localization manager of Borland International's Moscow office, and then for more than 23 years has been engaged in the localization industry as cofounder of Logrus.

hat is the greatest business accelerator in purchased will perform its function, or that the service localization?W What is the most necessary business provider does indeed possess the required qualifications. enzyme to allow two economic agents to enter But at the time of purchase you don’t know it for a fact. You into a reaction? are parting with your money for a promise. A promise that the car will drive and won’t break, the trip will be great, the It’s not cloud computing, Big Data or any other technol- service provider will do the job well. ogy. Nope. It’s the same catalyst that was gluing together But that will be tomorrow. Today, you are paying money deals for centuries and still is an underlying fabric of busi- in exchange for an expectation. If you are in the translation ness, especially service business. This factor has existed business, you may be doing work without pay, because the longer than people have traded goods and money. payment will only come 30 days upon job acceptance by the It’s trust. client. But you trust that your client will pay. Think about it — when you buy goods or services, you That kind of trust is not something huge; it is simply an are giving away your money in the belief that the item understanding that you are on the same page with another

38 January/February 2017 Focus

party. If you know this, you don't is acceptable and not acceptable unteer group with three prominent even need to formulate everything — between the client and translator freelancers and four representatives or in fact anything — in writing. And (be it LSP or freelancer). The usual of LSPs, and embarked on a journey as it happens, if the other party is not well-known clash between freelance together. It took us two years to cre- trustworthy, no written agreement translators and language companies ate a document 2,000 words long will help. is exacerbated by the difference in that can currently be found at http:// But when it comes to our industry, legislation. For example, in Russia translation-ethics.ru. how do you instantly establish trust it is legally impossible to include or Tatiana Yaroshenko, a freelance with a new economic counterpart, enforce a noncompete clause; Russian translator with 20 years of experience one often located remotely and whom civil (commercial) law explicitly states in the translation industry, was the you’ve never met or even heard of? Is it that any such clause would violate group administrator. The other proj- economical to sign a 20-page or even free trade. Period. It is a gap in Rus- ect participants grew into a group one page contract with a party for a sian business law of epic proportions; of 16 seasoned experts. We formed deal worth perhaps $400? Not to men- I wonder if any of the foreign clients the group using Google docs and set tion that a $400 contract with someone entering legal agreements with Rus- forth on our journey. We thought the who is a three-hour flight away from sian freelancers realize that any con- goals were straightforward, but the you is not legally enforceable. tract of that sort signed with a Russian endeavor proved to be much easier Adherence to the same professional resident is worth nothing? And of to say than to do. ethics may resolve this problem. If you course some of the Russian freelanc- First, we discovered that some know that the translator or LSP has ers maintain that this loophole gives freelancers have totally different adopted a specific professional code of them the right to “defend their rights” understandings of their mission. ethics, you are already on the same page and ignore the simplest rules of busi- There’s a strong faction of freelance with that potential client or supplier. ness ethics against “the evil LSPs.” translators who believe that LSPs are One may say “we don’t need codes; we But we all know that not every- “evil” by their very nature, being as have a standard nondisclosure agree- thing that is lawful is ethical. This mentioned “useless file shifters” ren- ment and standard contract they have and other issues have to be resolved dering no added value. They believed to sign and follow.” Sounds solid, but by professional ethics. a goal of the code of ethics should be standard law enforcement procedures The solution that some of the to protect the freelance translator. It cannot be engaged for singular deals most prominent Russian freelancers took us quite a while to establish that under $1,000, not to mention the time and heads of translation agencies what we wanted was to create some- that you will spend on negotiating the tried to put forward seemed to be thing to serve all industry agents, particular legalese. It’s simply not eco- trivial: let’s get together, freelancers freelance translators and LSPs alike. nomical for such transactions. And did and LSPs, and develop a common The gap between freelance translators you ever wonder to what degree the professional code of ethics for the and LSPs is wider and deeper than US-drafted agreement is enforceable Russian translation industry, so that one may think, and thus it is even in Russia or China? the entire industry will know what more rewarding that we crossed that However, when such transactions is good and what is bad, and on the chasm and moved forward. Please fail it’s no small deal for the transla- one hand stop inventing legal clauses take note that our project is among tor. Forums are full of angry messages that are not acceptable for the service the very few developed by represen- such as “they did not pay me, saying I providers. On the other hand, let’s tatives of both the freelance and LSP delivered the job an hour late,” “their close the gaps between the law and world, which is no small victory. Even legal terms are way beyond reason,” best practices. Let’s put everybody now some former members of the “they did not provide a glossary yet on a common ground and thus get initial group of experts argue that the base their rejection on terminol- the industry more civilized. The ethics of freelancers is different from ogy,” “they fined me, which I cannot initiative was not sponsored by any those of LSPs. Yet we completed the accept,” and so on. Here come black- legal entity or organization and was project, the group of experts signed lists, angry birds of the translation entirely grassroots, driven by the off on the document and it has been industry, animosity and the standoff enthusiasm of several people offer- published and accepted by many free- between freelance translators and ing their knowledge to improve the lance translators and LSPs. However, “file movers who do not add value.” industry. It was born at one of the there are still some people who deny In Russia we’ve seen a great dis- Translation Forum Russia events in that professional ethics even exist in parity in the understanding of what Kazan and in 2012 we formed a vol- our field. This emphasizes the need

January/February 2017 39 Focus

for similar projects to be adopted and As we went through the code your comment differently. It took quite developed worldwide. clauses, we uncovered many issues some time of intermittent communica- The code of ethics delved into any and tried to find the honest middle tion within the group to first agree on number of “hot” (meaning controver- ground. Legislation and local prac- the project plan and the outline, then sial) issues, such as how to regulate tice problems are in fact huge. Add- to create a draft and then discuss each head-hunting between LSPs. Is it ing to the grief on the noncompete and every one of the clauses in all their OK to cold-call employees of your issue, Russian business and copyright varieties, meeting positions of LSPs competitor and lure them to your law is quite different from US law, and freelancers. Different tempers and team, thus saving time and money on and actual practices are even more personalities of group members did training? The group clearly stated in different. In Russia, for example, all not help much, and sometimes were one of the clauses of the code that it is the rights to translation by default very difficult to handle. unethical to mass-cold-call employ- belong to the translator, and if you I’ve been a member, a driver and a ees if they have not already published don't legally sign the document that participant of many volunteer initia- their résumés on public job boards. transfers the right to the customer, tives, in GALA, in LT-Innovate, in I’m aware of a recent situation where then even as a paying client, the W3C and also some local ones. But this clause helped resolve a conflict Russian text is not yours. So how do to tell you the truth, at the end of the that had arisen. you manage to create a set of rules day, even given all the huge problems Or take the noncompete issue that would be compatible with both conspiring against the project, I have mentioned earlier. The group decided local and international business law, never seen the kind of unselfish deter- and formulated in the code that even and would be practically useful? The mination and drive so persistent as in though going to your client’s clients group engaged lawyers to get answers this group. They were moved solely may be legal, it is unethical. As a to some questions and address the by the desire to create some common consequence, if you deal with a free- most acute pain points, such as non- middle ground for the industry, in an lancer or an agency that has adopted compete, nonsolicitation and other attempt to improve the situation and the code of ethics, you have a better difficult subjects. atmosphere in the market, to borrow chance of your interests not being As if those objective problems were all the best and take into account compromised under the pretext of not enough, of course there was a all the concerns. Special kudos to abuse of client information being communication problem. You mean the group administrator and driver “lawful” in Russia. one thing, but someone else reads Yaroshenko, who literally saved the project several times by standing www.traductera.sk above the factional interests of LSPs and freelancers. Preklady a tlmočenieLocalization Partner for your success On the whole, the entire volun- Váš profesionálny partnerin Central & Eastern Europe teer group of experts demonstrated pre všetky svetové jazyky amazing dedication and commit- • profesionálne prekladateľské ment to create a common good a tlmočnícke služby — guidance for industry agents that • kompletné zabezpečenie tlmočenia will help industry practitioners avoid na konferenciách problems in the future and civilize the industry. • konzekutívne a simultánne tlmočenie As of today, many companies and TranslaTion freelancers have joined the initiative • preklady z/do všetkých svetových localizaTion and are using the logo to manifest • súdne overené preklady their support of the code of ethics DTP in their everyday work. The code is • korektúry, spracovanie, DTP MulTiMeDia already working — only very recently [email protected] it was referred to in an internal +420 384 361 300 industry dispute. I would advocate ACP Traductera, s.r.o. tel: +421 2555 68 939 for creating similar frameworks for Sídlo: fax: +421 2555 68 938 the entire industry that would facili- Šancová 102 GSM: +421 907 707 222 www.traductera.com 831 04 Bratislava e-mail: [email protected] tate business interactions globally in success our very small vertical trade. [M]

40 January/February 2017

www.traductera.com +420 384 361 300 / [email protected]

Focus

Privacy and language in German localization

Libor Safar

Libor Safar is marketing manager at Moravia. He has over 20 years' experience in the localization industry.

Perhaps no other quote has come to explain that can make or break your German success…and some are the localization industry better than what Willy not so obvious. Let’s look at a few of these. Brandt, chancellor of West Germany from 1969 Data localization to 1974, is widely quoted as saying: “If I am sell- ing to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, Few countries may care about privacy more than Ger- dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” many. Data privacy and protection (Datenschutz) are hot topics, and consumers take very seriously the way their It is also no surprise that this statement is about German — personally identifiable information is collected, managed, the language of Europe’s economic powerhouse — and Ger- stored and shared — and how much they are actually will- many — the largest market in the European Union. Germany ing to provide. This is one of the reasons why, for instance, straddles Western and Eastern Europe, and all this has helped Google Street View has only very limited availability there. make German a “no brainer” target language for any company Driven by this sentiment, Germany has beefed up its marketing products or services in the EU. But while Germany own Federal Data Protection Act, emerged as a strong may be traditionally among the first EU markets to enter, and advocate of strict data protection regulations at the EU it may seem like a well-trodden path, there are a lot of factors level, and worked hard to shape the new rules that govern

42 January/February 2017 Focus

data transfers between the United nies, their regular reviews by the US tional, acting as a data trustee. This States and the EU. Department of Commerce and defined means that this German entity con- For 15 years, these rules were dispute resolution mechanisms. trols access to customer data stored based on the Safe Harbor Privacy However, this is not the end of the on the servers in Germany, not Micro- Principles, which effectively allowed story in Germany, where there is a soft. This is a potential game-changer, US companies that store personal data strong drive to encourage, if not yet since it shows that what really matters from EU citizens to self-certify their legally require, storing Germans’ per- is perhaps not so much where data is compliance with the EU Data Protec- sonal data within the country. Accord- located, or how encrypted it is, but tion Directive in order to be able to ing to a recent survey by KPMG and rather who controls the information. transfer and store such data on their Bitkom, the German digital trade Besides such big-ticket decisions as servers in the US. association, 83% of German compa- physical data localization, every com- This is significant given the huge and nies expect their cloud provider to pany operating in Germany would do ever-growing amounts of data stored in have its data centers exclusively in the well to understand and comply with the cloud, and the fact that the internet country, while 74% want them to be the strict Federal Data Protection is dominated by US companies, and so located somewhere in the EU. Act, and communicate how and why most of these servers tend to be based in This data localization requirement they intend to use personal data and the US. Relying on data transfers across goes beyond — or rather against — the where it is stored. Clearly, this com- the Atlantic is more efficient than set- EU strategy to create the Digital Single munication should be in German. ting up independent data centers in Market (DSM), one digital market Europe, and certainly the preferred way covering all EU member states with no Going really local for smaller organizations. regulatory barriers for online goods or Privacy concerns are also behind But these principles were declared services across Europe. Right now, only the fact that some three-quarters of invalid by the European Court of 4% of online services in the EU are cross- German shoppers prefer to use credit Justice (ECJ) in October 2015, fol- border, while 42% are national and 54% cards when making online purchases. lowing a case brought by an Austrian are with US-based online services. But while credit card payments are citizen, and his complaint regarding DSM aims to end unjustified on the rise, the preferred method Facebook transferring his personal geo-blocking (think pan-EU simship of online payment is still by invoice data from the company’s European release as a rule), modernize copy- (Kauf auf Rechnung), together with HQ in Ireland to servers in the US. right rules to provide wider online other non-credit card payments such This surprising decision has forced availability of content across the EU as SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) the roughly 4,400 companies that had (think the same content on Netflix direct debit, SOFORT Überweisung relied on the principles, including available in all EU countries), and (an online payment system now owned technology giants such as Amazon, facilitate cross-border ecommerce. by Klarna of Sweden) and Giropay (an Facebook, Google, IBM and Sales- But while the DSM is a more dis- online payment system using direct force, to overhaul their transatlantic tant objective, companies go to great online transfers from bank accounts). operations. Many — from Amazon lengths to meet current German data Invoices for online payments Web Services to Microsoft Azure and location requirements. For instance, are normally due in 14 days from Office 365 — have opted for so-called Amazon Web Services (AWS) built delivery, which is very generous by “model contract clauses.” While these data centers in two EU locations – global standards. In a similar vein, still face potential legal challenges, they Dublin, Ireland, and Frankfurt, Ger- cash-on-delivery, which is so popular are standard provisions defined and many — and offers their corporate in many other European countries, is approved by the European Commis- customers the option to run AWS used much less, and personal checks sion and so provide a firmer footing. and store data exclusively on German practically don’t exist. A replacement data-sharing agree- soil. Similarly, Microsoft opened One thing that German consumers ment was hammered out between the their first cloud data centers in Ger- demand and expect as standard is a US and the EU in early 2016 in the form many, what they call Microsoft Cloud no-questions return period of 14 days. of the so-called EU-US Privacy Shield. Germany, in September 2016. Long the default option in Germany, This agreement went into effect on July To assuage any concerns by their this later became a consumer right 12, 2016, and is designed to give com- German customers, Microsoft actu- across the EU, with buyers having panies the legal right to transfer data ally went one step further, and has a the right to cancel and return online to the US from the EU. This is based German company, Deutsche Tele- orders within 14 days, for any reason on stronger obligations on US compa- kom’s subsidiary, T-Systems Interna- and with no justification needed.

January/February 2017 43 Focus

German data centers controlled by a German data trustee are a big selling point for Microsoft Azure in the EU.

Making your German Unlike in other countries such as cisms that some German users may sound German France, there is no one all-encompass- find it difficult to understand. How do you make sure your Ger- ing institution governing the language Worse still, for others, is the slow man localization is just right? German use in German-speaking countries, creep of English grammar and syntax is one of the languages that tends to though there are groups such as the into German. The Institut für Deutsche borrow foreign words — these days Council for German Orthography Sprache has published guidelines for mostly English — fairly liberally. But (Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung) the formation and incorporation of a heavy use of English words in Ger- and the Institute of German Language neologisms, but these are not always man sentences is mockingly called (Institut für Deutsche Sprache). The followed in real life. This may apply to “Denglisch” (Deutsch and Englisch). appropriate approach to using Eng- verb conjugation or even fixed phrases It may amuse some, but it bemuses lish loanwords in German is really such as “it makes sense.” While the many others who prefer the more tra- driven by the target audience, the standard German phrase would be es ditional ways, and there are popular demographics and by extension the hat Sinn (it has sense), some Germans movements to resist this trend. industry and the specific context. started to say es macht Sinn, a direct While some loanwords have The more technical the content is, translation from English makes. become fully standard in German, the more likely it is to contain more Similarly, it is very easy to form some are more or less nuanced specialized language, meaning nor- German verbs from English by add- equivalents of other established Ger- mally more English words. But it is very ing a suffix, such as -en (to debug: man words, while others are new or easy to not get this right. For instance, debuggen, to chat: chatten) or -ieren simply generational and preferential, even content from providers of routine (to shock: schockieren). However, and only time will tell if they get more services such as mobile or broadband while the correct past participle would universally accepted. can be littered with so many Angli- be shockiert, one may increasingly

44 January/February 2017 Focus

encounter the new form geschockt, may use the informal du in their mar- In general, terms related to finance, which uses the traditional German keting content, they would still revert to sports, culture or administration may ge- normally added to native verbs, the formal Sie in other contexts, such as be different and need to be verified if and omits the ending -ieren, which their terms and conditions, or even an they can be used across locales. There has been traditionally added to loan online shopping basket. So in reality, it is no clear division between the locales words. In both cases, the underlying is normal to see a mixed approach. that would be valid across all areas. driver is the desire to appear more Two languages may overlap in one casual, colloquial and akin to English Targeting all 95 million area and differ in another. In practice, expressions. Such an approach may be native speakers adaption from one variant to another useful in some localization scenarios, There are some differences in Stan- is fully acceptable, separate transla- but is certainly not the general rule. dard German as used in Germany, tions from scratch are not needed. There is the general trend towards Austria and Switzerland, mostly in Few other languages may enjoy a more friendly, conversational, casual style and syntax, but other than cul- such high volumes of localization as language style, and many global brands tural specifics, much of the vocabulary German. But Germany is a country have adopted this in their products is the same. When it comes to local- that changes rapidly, and local con- over the past years. But this does not izing content in general areas, there is sumer requirements and the language always transfer easily into German normally no need to cater to individual as such change with the times as and is not the universal approach. variants. But marketing, social media well. Failing to get the local specifics It is very easy to get your style or any other types of content that right might give others the feeling of wrong in German as you translate or aim to address users more directly, to schadenfreude. Come to think of it, transcreate your content. Some com- “touch their heart,” may need to be there might even be a German word panies may, for instance, be tempted adopted for the different variants. for that. [M] to embrace the informal second person singular pronoun du form in their communication, as opposed to the formal second person singular or plural pronoun Sie, but it pays to tread with caution and calibrate the tone to the given target audience in Germany. Translations for the Life Sciences, Looking at a few examples from the broad travel industry, it is easy to see Medical, IT and Technology Sectors a pattern. The Sie form is used online by companies such as Expedia, Book- ing.com, TripAdvisor, Hotels.com and HomeAway, while Airbnb, Kayak, Flix- Translation & Localization bus or Uber use the informal form du. Those appealing to a broader audi- Layout, Graphics & DTP ence are safer with the more formal form of address, and that is certainly the case also with typical product Software Engineering localization. But those aiming to appeal to an audience that might be Multimedia Localization perhaps put off by the formal style can make effective use of the du style. Others may prefer the politer cap- italized form of Du. This form is still often used in writing, as in letters, although its use has been discouraged in the German orthography reform Certified under ISO 17100:2015 of 1996 (Rechtschreibreform). www.adapt-localization.com In either case, the use of Sie/du is Bonn | Barcelona | Stockholm | Copenhagen always situational, and while companies

January/February 2017 45 Focus

Defense opportunities in Poland

Jacob Andra is senior industry analyst for U.S. Translation Company, a language services provider with a focus on helping US exporters Jacob Andra localize their offerings for overseas markets.

According to a McKinsey report, Poland has The White House claims that a ratified T-TIP (Transat- “been growing continuously for almost a quarter lantic Trade and Investment Partnership Treaty — a trade century now,” and should continue to do so. With its agreement bedeviled by difficulty and currently expected policy of economic liberalization, the country can to pass by 2020) will accelerate US-Polish trade, promoting boast the largest economy in Central and Eastern six critical areas for US enterprise engagement in Poland. Europe, and the eighth largest in the EU in terms These are “infrastructure, green-building [sic], intelligent of gross domestic product. Poland was the only EU transportation systems, energy, defense, and information technology.” Promising sectors, all six, but defense arguably nation to keep its economy out of recession during will eclipse the others. the 2008-2010 downturn. In short, Poland offers a strong market for US and European products. And, Poland’s motivation since it is a significant military ally, it is an especially To be sure, Poland wants to upgrade its infrastructure, strong market for aerospace and defense exports. gain energy independence and promote sustainable building

46 January/February 2017 Focus

All figures in current US dollars. Source:Poland’s Defence Modernisation Plan: A Race Against Time. practices. However, these projects NATO presence in what it sees as its Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice lose their urgency — indeed, perhaps sphere of influence. This claim, even if Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, in even their importance — in the face of a pretense for armament, is not without Polish, abbreviated PiS) is considered an existential threat. merit: inherent in an arms race is the the most hawkish toward Russia of Only a generation ago, Poland idea of mutual deterrence, with both any European government, which crawled out of the clutches of a crum- parties trying to keep up with or outdo may be part of the reason it so aggres- bling Soviet empire, the memory of one another. Indeed, according to sively seeks to enhance its defense which must contribute to the coun- basic principles of game theory, if one’s capabilities. Not waiting for T-TIP or try’s wariness. Russia, for its part, has enemy or potential enemy — and any- anything else, Poland has embarked recently revitalized Cold War anxiet- one not bound by alliance is a potential on an extensive program to upgrade ies and given Poland plenty of reasons enemy — militarizes, one must do the the country’s military hardware, for alarm. It illegally annexed Crimea same or risk inviting destruction. Such which consists primarily of Soviet- in 2014, and continues an unofficial is the anarchic nature of international era production relics. “Security is a destabilization program in Ukraine. relations, all wishes for world peace to fundamental pillar of the U.S.-Poland The Russian military stages massive the contrary. bilateral relationship,” according to a military exercises in the Baltic Sea Poland has the ninth largest military fact sheet on US-Poland relations on and elsewhere. These include large, of all NATO countries, and the largest whitehouse.gov. The sheet goes on to unannounced drills — snap drills, in of all Eastern and Central European describe a “10-year, $35 billion defense military parlance — which the United countries, with approximately 100,000 modernization program” that will turn States and its European allies have active personnel. It stands, in effect, Poland’s creaking military machine not done since the end of the Cold as NATO’s primary bulwark against into a sleek, formidable component War. Snap exercises are generally Russian aggression, hypothetical or of NATO’s collective deterrence disavowed by the international com- real. Even though other countries such doctrine. Dubbed the Armed Forces munity, but Russia takes advantage as Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania lie Technical Modernization Program of a loophole in a security agreement between Poland and Russia, they are (TMP), the endeavor has “made that it signed with Western powers. not seen as having sufficient military Poland a bright spot in the European For its part, Russia claims to ramp up might to even begin to deter, much security landscape” and “will eventu- its military only to counter an increased less repel a Russian invasion. ally make for a better equipped and

January/February 2017 47 Focus

more lethal Polish military,” according players. All of this, of course, is hypo- Brigade, and also of Operation to CEPA. thetical; the framework concept has Atlantic Resolve. Under the latter of yet to be tested on the battlefield (one these, Operation Atlantic Resolve, A bittersweet would hope, perhaps, that it never US military forces conduct training business opportunity will have that opportunity). and security cooperation activities The financial opportunities for US The Very High Readiness Joint with Poland and other Eastern Euro- and European aerospace and defense Task Force, as its name suggests, will pean states such as Latvia, Estonia manufacturers are as golden as the deploy on short notice, and would and Bulgaria. humanitarian implications are dire. serve as an initial onslaught in the Specific opportunities A second arms race bodes poorly event of actual war. Containing about for geopolitical peace, while simul- 5,000 warfighters, the force will for defense manufacturers taneously offering huge commercial launch proactively following the first The TMP was actually initiated opportunities. warnings and indicators of potential not by PiS, but by the previous With all of this Polish money threats, before a crisis begins, to act administration. The original TMP flowing into the US and EU defense as a deterrent to further escalation. entailed 14 distinct defense acquisi- sectors, a lot of companies will profit. However, “funding issues and deci- tion programs; PiS, however, has Through primary players such as sion-making challenges” threaten to reduced its scope to just four. The Lockheed Martin, Airbus and Boeing prevent the task force from becoming thinking behind this reduction, to secondary contractors like Adel a reality, according to a March 2016 presumably, is that $35 billion spent Wiggins and Ontic and on down to article in Atlantic Council. Originally on fewer programs will more sub- tertiary suppliers such as Advanced scheduled for operational duty by stantially bolster the programs of Composites Inc. and ACT Aero- early 2016, it remains conceptual as of focus. PiS’s revised TMP prioritizes space, the contracts will infuse cash late 2016. Indeed, the force’s struggles the areas of air defense, cybersecu- all the way through the supply chain may reflect the fact that NATO itself rity, armored units and, finally, the and provide an arena for innovative is experiencing significant challenges. less-defined category of procuring companies to offer solutions. These include insufficient funding systems to address naval threats Poland’s involvement in joint (five of NATO’s 28 member states to Poland. According to Colonel deterrence programs continues to meet their 2% of GDP defense spend- Karol Dymanowski, head of Poland’s expand. The country has committed ing commitment) and consensus- Armament Policy Department, these to become a framework nation for making difficulties in which member defense clusters will define “the NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint states have difficulty agreeing to and niches in which the industry should Task Force. The framework nation sustaining a coherent strategy. Despite operate,” including Poland’s interna- concept, introduced to NATO by such obstacles, an increasingly power- tional trading partners. Germany in 2013, involves cohesive ful and hungry Russia will almost Missile proliferation in the Middle multinational military units. Smaller certainly motivate NATO members to East and a rearming Russia have armies could plug their remaining overcome their differences and invest spurred Poland to the realization that capabilities into an organizational heavily in collective and individual it must develop a national air defense backbone provided by a larger, defense and deterrence. system. To be sure, the country envi- framework nation. By providing such In addition to its contribution sions its air defense system as a com- a framework, Poland will serve as to the joint task force, Poland has ponent of NATO’s larger deterrence a hub for a military consortium of a NATO Force Integration Unit project. At the same time, aware of specialist forces from various NATO (NFIU), the role of which, according the volatile geopolitical landscape, members. In theory, this allows to NATO, is to “represent a visible Poland has decided that it needs the the proficiencies of each nation’s and persistent NATO presence” and capacity to defend itself indepen- military to complement the others, “facilitate the rapid deployment of dently of allies and outside assistance. resulting in a synergistic force more Allied forces.” Poland does not limit Accordingly, the Polish government well-rounded than that which could its military partnerships to NATO. has drafted the three-prong Tarcza be assembled by any one constituent The country plays an active role in Polski, or Shield of Poland. member state. The scheme is also the Visegrad Group along with the The Shield of Poland’s first tier attractive because it distributes cost Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hun- of air defense uses anti-aircraft and human contribution, making gary. It is a member of the up-and- shoulder-fired Grom missiles. The a lower barrier to entry for small coming Lithuania-Poland-Ukraine Grom can also be truck-mounted in

48 January/February 2017 CEE Showcase

the quad Poprad system. Already, the Polish government has contracted Polish defense firm Pit Radwar to provide 79 Poprad systems to the Your Reliable Partner tune of $273 million. The second tier of the Shield for Russian The Partner for Polish and other Central European languages. relies on batteries of short-range • In business since 1987 conventional anti-aircraft missiles. • ISO 9001 & ISO 17100 certified TextPartner offers in-house translation, revision, Companies such as Diehl (Germany), • Unlock advantages of different time zones DTP and printing services. RAFAEL (Germany) and Raytheon • High quality for reasonable price TextPartner brings to your projects: (USA) are reportedly competing for • T&P, TEP, localization, revision, review, • 19 years of experience and expertise in a wide contracts. proofreading, DTP range of specialized fields In Tarcza Polski’s top tier, medium • Russian, Ukrainian, CIS and other languages • a professional, dedicated in-house team with a to long-range missiles will defend • Fields of expertise: technical (energy, oil and special focus on quality against incoming ballistic missiles, gas, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, • fully controlled processes and deadlines as well as strike at enemy targets. aviation and so on), IT and software, medical, • query and terminology management Reportedly, Lockheed-Martin, Israel’s legal and marketing • a range of CAT and DTP tools SIBAT, and Raytheon seek to gain the • SDL Trados 2007, SDL Trados Studio (2009, bid; Poland is evaluating the merits of 2011, 2014), memoQ, Across v6.3, SDL Multi- • efficient communication across time zones Lockheed’s MEADS, SIBAT’s Stunner Term, ApSIC Xbench, Verifika, Memsource • commitment to standards and Raytheon’s PATRIOT. PATRIOT appears most likely to win out. Avanta Translating In addition to the Shield of Poland, London, UK • Chelyabinsk, Russia TextPartner sp.j. the Polish military needs air power. [email protected] Katowice and Zielona Góra, Poland http://avanta-translating.com/en [email protected] • www.textpartner.com The US and Poland signed an FMS (Foreign Military Sales) agreement for 40 Lockheed Martin AGM-158 cruise missiles; these are fired from an aircraft and have a range of 230 km. Poland plans to purchase “32 new attack helicopters” and “24 heavy-lift helicopters” according to a 2016 Congressional Research Your Polish Service report. The Polish Air Force Competency Center is rumored to seek aerial unmanned Romanian Culture Since 2000, Ryszard Jarża Translations has aircraft (drones) to supplement its Connoisseur been providing Polish translation, localization manned aircraft. Additionally, some and marketing copy adaptation services directly sources report Poland to be eyeing Translation, transcreation, post-editing, memoQ, to corporate customers and MLVs worldwide. We Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. CAT tools… These may be only keywords but we, at have built a brilliant in-house team made up of Cyberwarfare — presumably on Casa de Traduceri, incorporated all these services experienced linguists and engineers who guaran- and technologies in a complete package. the part of Russia or Russian-spon- tee a high standard of quality while maintaining Operating since 2001, we constantly grew to sored actors — has factored promi- flexibility, responsiveness and accountability. reach a level of expertise needed to handle even nently into the Ukrainian conflict. • Life sciences, IT, automotive, other technology the most complex requirements. Working only sectors. Understandably, such attacks have with Romanian natives, we can offer competitive • Highly experienced in marketing impressed upon Poland the neces- rates, backed up by 15 years of carefully selecting communications. sity of improving its cybersecurity only the best resources for our partners. • In-house translators and revisers. defenses. Considering that cyberse- • Certified to ISO 17100. curity entails a number of connected disciplines and technologies (encryp- Casa de Traduceri tion, cyber forensics, risk analysis), Bucharest, Romania Ryszard Jarża Translations business opportunities abound for [email protected] Wrocław, Poland international IT and security firms. http://casadetraduceri.ro [email protected] • http://jarza.pl

49 Focus

Poland’s National Security Bureau Poland’s own OBRUM (Osrodek for broader operations in Europe.” spent more than a year studying the Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urządzeń Therefore, they “have been willing to cyber-landscape and drafting the Mechanicznych, or Research and provide attractive packages to their country’s 2014 “Cybersecurity Doc- Development Centre for Mechanical Polish counterparts.” These packages trine of the Republic of Poland.” The Appliances) is building WPB Anders often include technology transfers. In 26-page Doctrine calls for the obvious: tanks for the country’s military. such a transfer, the foreign contrac- “pursuing active cyberdefence,” “main- OBRUM is also collaborating with BAE tor wins the first part of a bid, with taining readiness for cyberwar” and Systems, a British multinational defense the stipulation that they partner with preventing “cyberviolence, destruc- manufacturer, on development of the a Polish firm and bring them up to tive cyberprotests and cyberdemon- new PL-01 armored fighting vehicle. speed. In subsequent production strations.” It also specifies the need to We know less about Poland’s fourth runs, the two firms would perhaps support and nurture private firms to pillar of the revised TMP having to do collaborate. The end goal, however, supply cybersecurity solutions. with naval threats. We can assume with would be to bring the manufacturing Soon after Poland released its some degree of certainty, however, ability completely in-house. Cybersecurity Doctrine, the United that PiS will retain the “Operational Even considering such transfers, States Secretary of Commerce led the Programme — Countering Threats however, the opportunity for defense “Cyber Security Business Develop- at Sea,” laid out by its predecessors in contractors is immense. From remote ment Mission” to Poland (the delega- power. The Operational Programme sensing to surveillance, electronic tion also stopped in Romania) in 2015. calls for the procurement of “three control systems to ammunition, the Containing representatives from US corvette-type coastal defence ships, TMP represents an immense pie, and industry and trade associations, the four offshore patrol vessels…three one with a piece for almost everyone mission aimed to give US security and mine countermeasures vessels, a mili- with an invitation to the table. To get IT firms “access to business develop- tary sealift / logistics support ship,” an invitation, one has but to offer a ment opportunities” in Poland and three submarines, and various other solution to any one of the hundreds the greater Eastern European region. “specialist platforms.” Whether PiS of discrete technological challenges Members of the mission gained access follows the Operational Programme inherent in the TMP’s fulfilment. to private meetings with Polish gov- exactly or modifies it to suit its own ernment officials and industry leaders priorities remains to be seen. Trump effect and potential joint-venture partners. The recent election of Donald Essentially, Poland has opened its Defense partnerships Trump to the United States Presi- doors and hung out a welcome sign According to a report by the Center dency will certainly impact the Baltic to foreign firms that can supply the for European Policy Analysis, “Poland regional geopolitical situation. How- Polish government with the neces- is in the process of emerging into the ever, given the proven unpredictability sary systems and defenses. globally competitive defense sector.” of president-elect Trump — after all, As for armored vehicles, Poland Translation: Poland’s own defense sec- his unconventional approach to poli- has more than 900 tanks — more than tor has some catching up to do. Conse- tics is the one thing his supporters and twice that of France — the majority of quently, Poland looks to international critics seem to agree on — the nature which are, like so much of the coun- firms for many of its acquisitions. of the impact is difficult to predict. try’s military hardware, of Soviet-era “Time is not on Poland’s side,” the If Trump signals support for NATO manufacture. It also has almost 2,000 report concludes, and Poland seems and a willingness to defend US allies “armored fighting vehicles.” Some- to recognize that reality. Thus, the against Russian incursion, tensions where between a tank and a truck, scramble for defense modernization. are likely to continue to mount in the these maneuver more rapidly than a In addition to dishing out defense con- region. If Trump, as many already tank while still possessing consider- tracts, the country has incentivized accuse him of, demonstrates a con- able firepower. foreign defense partners to share their ciliatory posture toward Russia, the Yet, even with such a large armored technologies. And, in a development latter could easily interpret such a tone division, Poland wants still more unusual in the defense sector, foreign as tacit encouragement for further tanks and light armored vehicles. It firms have obliged. They demonstrate territorial annexation. In either case, recently finalized a contract with Ger- a “willingness to invest in Poland” however, Poland will be on the front man defense contractor Rheinmetall because of the vast “growth opportu- lines of a brewing confrontation with Landsysteme GmbH for 119 Leopard nities of the Polish market.” They also a formidable adversary; its incentive to tanks (the deal is worth $144 million). “see the country as a potential anchor arm will be assured. [M]

50 January/February 2017 Technology

Building a roadmap for Big Data TM integration A proposed method for handling proprietary data

Konstantine Boukhvalov Alexander Jimenez Konstantine Boukhvalov is the operations manager of Alexander Jimenez is the director of operations for software engineering services for Experis Language Experis Language Solutions/ManpowerGroup and Solutions/ManpowerGroup (formerly COMSYS/ASET) has been with them for over ten years. He currently with over 20 years of industry experience. oversees the language services delivery team.

Many corporations and government entities property and security concerns, opening the would like to benefit from the Big Data revo- door to wider exploitation of high-value multi- lution in language processing. Currently, this lingual content. requires feeding large amounts of data into open or shared technology solutions. However, legal One proposed solution is built around a new techno- concerns about control of intellectual property logical concept: a multilingual redaction database (MRD). The MRD would allow content creators to apply FlexData — and even questions of national security — (defined later in this article) to any sensitive subsegments often frustrate even the most modest ambitions to allow for easy substitution with custom or generic to “ride the Big Data wave.” However, there is a metadata, as defined by the content creator. The content way to alleviate or eliminate these intellectual creator can also define user levels that limit how much of

January/February 2017 51 Technology

the content the end users can view. markup to users with lower access The context of the surrounding rights. If the MRD entries have MRD content would remain clear even in been translated as well, users with redacted, sensitive information, the appropriate permissions could allowing for the use of computer- view the entire target document, Architecture definition aided translation (CAT) tools on including the sensitive information. any source document that contains Moreover, applying this preparatory sensitive data. This approach redaction method to TMs would FlexData structure definition would ultimately allow for Big Data also allow for the creation of Big contribution. Data-ready TM corpora. Source-locale population Sensitive content subsegments Custom tag definition would be defined in the content The current state of affairs authoring system and entered into TMs are among the most valuable Tag Translation an MRD. The MRD would func- digital assets for the language tech- String translation in CAT, tion like other CAT features such nology industry. One of the latest standalone or integrated as translation memories (TMs) trends in managing and leveraging and termbases. Once the source- translations is maintaining TMs language content has been “marked in a cloud environment. Freelance Multilingual MRD up” with the MRD entries and all linguists, language service provid- access roles have been defined, the ers (LSPs), and internal corporate source content would be exported or government linguistic resources into an exchange format (a flavor upload their TMs to a freely acces- Reintegrate into original CA/CM environment of XML) for ingestion into a CAT sible Big Data TM. environment (Figure 1). There are many potential benefits The translation team would have to developing Big Data TM corpora. Figure 1: Proposed MRD functionality. two options for processing this First, the language services com- CA stands for content authority and content in a CAT environment. In munity would have free access to a CM stands for content management. the first option, the translation team large repository of legacy transla- would have full access rights to all tions to leverage when translating Another key detractor is the content, including the accompany- new content. Second, instead of perceived competitive advantage ing MRD. For the second option, the being limited to the existing legacy gained by TM ownership. Prior to Big sensitive source-language MRD data TMs produced by a limited pool of Data, ownership of well-maintained, would be translated separately by the vendors, corporate and government domain-specific TMs was widely team with full access rights, but the language services would be able to and rightfully accepted as giving redacted content would be translated pretranslate their content by leverag- clients and localization providers a by another team with less access ing a translation database produced competitive edge. It has been several rights (Figure 2). The first option by thousands of translators. Third, years since the introduction of the allows for tight security controls, but the database would be continuously Big Data approach, but the concept it does not offer content authors any updated and serve as a base for MT of sharing linguistic data assets with flexibility. The second option allows solution training. the global community to achieve for the same tight security controls, However, there is resistance to greater success is still a challenge. but it offers the content authors the developing Big Data TMs. One of While we are not addressing this flexibility to process the redacted the main resistance points — and a issue in this article, we believe it is content with a separate team for perfectly valid one — is that propri- important to mention that TAUS has potential cost and time savings. etary and sensitive data could, and been playing a key role in advocat- Sensitive areas of the source most likely would, enter the public ing the competitive advantage of and translated content would be domain through TM exchange. The shared data and services through presented differently based on the risk of sensitive data exposure is one The Human Language Project and access level of the target audience. of the major obstacles to forming a implementation of the Data Cloud After translation, the target docu- Big Data community that would be for collecting, sharing and leveraging ment would display only redacted willing to contribute TM corpora for multilingual data within the global content with source-language MRD global leveraging. translation community.

52 January/February 2017 Technology

user access rules based on data Digitalized content ready sensitivity. CA/CM z Introduction of the concept of revolving metadata, or FlexData. As a by-product of this approach, Human redaction analysis it would also be possible to perform in CA/CM linguistic-action analysis on Big Data-ready content. Challenges Redaction markup and substitution Before proceeding to the pro- with FlexData in CA/CM posed method, let’s identify the main obstacles standing in the way of Big Data content integration. First, we need to address source Export for translation MRD content generation and management. Let’s use the extreme case of redacted content. In the case of redaction, after the original digital or hard-copy content Option 1 Option 2 is analyzed for sensitivity, two ver- sions of the content are generated: Redacted Redacted the original unredacted content content + MRD content MRD with the sensitive data exposed, and the redacted version of the content with the sensitive data removed or encrypted. While in certain cases Integrated Independent encryption may provide some useful translation in Independent translation in translation in context, fully redacted data precludes MRD-ready MRD-ready CAT the content from being useful for Big CAT CAT Data TM leveraging. To achieve lever- aging, a clear link is required between the original and protected content. Moreover, a multilayered security solution may be required to accom- modate multiple data access levels. CA/CM The current state of language technology, including CAT and machine translation, does not pro- vide adequate support for translation Figure 2: Content authoring/content management/CAT system MRD and and management of sensitive data, FlexData support. short of managing it in a classified or similarly protected environment. As To address the issue of sensitive data zData protection via external- a result, multilingual corpora result- exposure impeding the progress of Big ization and restricted access levels ing from translation of sensitive data Data TM, we have developed a com- based on content sensitivity. cannot be openly shared. prehensive concept that could address zApplication of a linguistic action Similarly, translations of redacted sensitive data handling for Big Data TM script for content preservation and data — where the sensitive data is either integration. As mentioned previously, usability. removed or encrypted using a propri- our proposed solution is called a multi- z Generation of an MRD for etary technology — have no context, lingual redaction database (MRD) and storing sensitive data with a multi- and would not be usable for Big Data includes the following: layered taxonomy and customized TM integration and leveraging.

January/February 2017 53 Technology

Building blocks: The FlexData approach would treat all data within the hierarchy equally. The data structure would be defined Existing technologies based on business rules such as user access rights, or could When a human translator translates in a CAT environ- reflect a combination. ment, the source content is segmented into smaller chunks Term (main entry/Business Role): department manager (i.e. sentences) based on predefined segmentation rules. Name (metadata layer 1): John Smith These chunks are called source segments. Source segments Department (metadata layer 2): accounting are translated inside the CAT environment into target- Term (main entry/Department): accounting language target segments. Source and target segments are Name (metadata layer 1): John Smith linked together into translation units and stored in a TM Business Role (metadata layer 1): department manager database for future leveraging. When the TM is populated, Term (main entry/Business Role, Department): depart- the CAT environment compares the source segments of ment manager, accounting subsequent translations to the translation units stored in Name (metadata layer 1): John Smith the TM and populates the corresponding target segments Unlike a strict data hierarchy, the FlexData approach if a match is available. A key technology that was recently allows data to be manipulated to meet specific data query introduced in CAT solutions is sub-segmentation. Sub- needs. segmentation is used by the CAT environment to identify In addition to playing a key role in the MRD approach, smaller chunks within source segments and compare/ FlexData can bring a new level of efficiency to conven- match them against the smaller chunks of source segments tional termbase solutions by addressing morphological of translation units in a TM. variations of termbase entries. While morphological To maximize consistency in key terminology in content variations of terminology can be defined in the current authoring and CAT environments, content creators and termbase technologies, there are only two viable ways to translators rely heavily on auxiliary databases they popu- use the information. First, add the variations to the entry’s late and maintain. Terminology sets are often generated metadata, or second, define multiple termbase entries by content creators and translated prior to translation of (one for each variation). This limitation restricts termbase the main content. When the translator works in a CAT usability (matching/recognition) and terminology man- environment, he or she automatically receives suggested agement. Introducing FlexData will enable the creation of translations for key terminology that the system pulls complex termbase entries in which all required morpho- from the database. Term entries may contain additional logical variations can be defined, and each variation can metadata in the form of linguistic, organizational and be searched, transformed into a main entry and proposed business information. as a term match. For multilingual content generation, we first need to Building blocks: address management of the original source-language data. New concepts Luckily, most of the necessary technology is already avail- Taxonomy and metadata concepts are already widely able. Currently, any well-developed content management utilized in content authoring and CAT solutions, including system (CMS) provides support and functionality for a in TMs and termbases that utilize a strict data-metadata glossary or a termbase. Contemporary termbase technol- hierarchy. We believe the benefit of these technologies ogy allows users to store key terminology and create a could be expanded by introducing the concept of inter- multilayered cloud of taxonomy and metadata around the changeable metadata hierarchy or FlexData. Unlike the term entries. usual approach where we have a main entry/content sup- In conjunction with the FlexData approach, integrat- ported by a single or multiple layers of metadata, FlexData ing the data into either existing termbase technology or would give both the main content and the metadata the a secondary termbase-like linguistic segment database ability to play either a main content or a metadata role, with multilingual support, a content creator should be based on defined business rules. able to set up a data entry structure that would allow for For example: all required redaction substitutions. The key difference “John Smith is a department manager who manages between the proposed MRD approach and the existing accounting.” termbase technology is that the MRD would not suggest A conventional data structure would look like this: a term, but rather substitute it with the appropriate data Term (main entry/name): John Smith value from the MRD entry (see Figure 1). Business Role (metadata layer 1): department manager Example (segments requiring redaction are under- Department (metadata layer 2): accounting lined): “We all know and love John Smith, an accountant

54 January/February 2017 Technology

at ACME from Las Vegas who joined of the redacted content segments), our community two months ago.” TM TB MRD the overall quality and speed of Main Entries: John Smith, accoun- translation of redacted files should tant, ACME, Las Vegas. improve considerably. The resulting Main Entries with FlexData MRD-ready CAT translations of redacted content and John Smith standalone MRD entries could be Name readily combined and used in the accountant Translation content authoring environment to Profession create target-language content that ACME maintains multiple levels of data Business affiliation access (see Figure 2). Las Vegas In principle, redacted/marked- Option 1 Option 2 Business location up content and MRD entries could The key to the proposed solution be translated using existing CAT is to ensure that any combination of technologies with slight customiza- the metadata elements can be treated tion of parsing filters. However, in as the main entry. That way, the order to achieve the full benefits of content creator can readily access the proposed MRD approach, CAT the context and apply substitution Translated redacted content Translator FlexData technology must be further developed markup as needed. to support MRD. The requirements In order to successfully support would be a hybrid of TM and termbase multilayered redaction, the content functionality support (see Figure 3). In authoring environment would need Big Data-ready TM + MRD addition to existing CAT technology, to provide support for sub-segmen- redacted content the solution would require: tation as well as automatic in-content z CAT Connector/Application Pro- MRD entry substitution based on Figure 3: Translation and generation gram Interface (API) to MRD with the set business rules. The system also of Big Data-ready content. ability to access and edit source- and would need to support MRD entry target-language entries. query and substitution. from {Business Location} who joined zSubstitution of MRD tags with Here is an example based on the our community two months ago.” the original content after pretransla- John Smith information: After identi- USER3: “We all know and love tion for better contextual reference fying all the sensitive data and creating {Name}, an {Business Role} at (based on each user’s access rights). MRD entries, a master content author- {Employer} from {Business Loca- z Markup of translated redacted ing user (a source language speaker tion} who joined our community two elements in the target-language seg- with full data access rights) defines months ago.” ments and populating target-language user types based on data access levels. As can be seen above, regardless of MRD entries. USER1 access: Original segment. the level of access, all three user types z Generation of TMs with USER2 access: Name, business would be able to work with the content redacted original content replaced role, employer. without missing the benefit of context. by MRD markup. USER3 access: None. When the content is ready for TMs produced from CAT envi- Based on the data access rights translation, it could be exported as ronments utilizing this approach configured for each user, the system an original document with redaction would address the community’s data would substitute the data elements markup (tags) or as a tagged/marked- security concerns and provide lever- with the appropriate FlexData values up interchange format (XML) with or age to justify Big Data integration. and give each user access to the con- without the MRD export as discussed Further discussion of this concept tent as follows: above. The MRD export could be may identify additional benefits that USER1: “We all know and love translated separately by linguists could be achieved by standardizing John Smith, an accountant at ACME with a higher level of access (whose MRD entry structure, including from Las Vegas who joined our com- time is also usually more expensive) substitution mark-up. The localiza- munity two months ago.” to provide further data security. tion community will need to band USER2: “We all know and love Since translators would have access together to create this technology John Smith, an accountant at ACME to contextual reference (substitutions and ride the Big Data wave. [M]

January/February 2017 55 Technology

Messenger bots and the demands of localization

Pavel Doronin Pavel Doronin is a localization specialist from Saint Petersburg, Russia. He has experience in localization of cybersecurity products, computer games and industrial projects. He joined SmartCAT as a product manager and senior analyst in October 2016.

Wearables, big data, machine learning, neu- work right now, at this very moment. While I ral networks and the Internet of Things are all was writing this article, Google presented neural changing our notions about the future, our machine translation, a new step in the evolution everyday lives and our approach to professional of machine translation. I am sure that blockchain activities. The translation industry is experienc- technologies will surprise us in language-related ing many positive effects and benefits from new fields soon too. technologies. A new era of adaptive machine All these innovations influence our perception of con- translation and post-editing, cloud technolo- tent, as well as its creation and the various ways of inter- gies, voice recognition and speech-to-speech acting with it. Messenger bots are one such new way of translations — all these things are changing our engaging with content. The messenger trend has led us to

56 January/February 2017 Technology

the bot trend. Many messengers are launching their own bot platforms, and Microsoft recently presented its Bot Framework, which allows for the creation of bots across many platforms: Skype, Slack, Telegram, and even SMS and email. In this context, bots are not robots resembling androids, they are virtual messenger contacts that allow users or even user groups to interact with services and programs via a messenger interface. In other words, the bots are kind of an alternative content delivery channel. A wide range of bots are available, covering everything from news and weather forecasts to flight reservations and even money transfers. Some are even talking of a paradigm shift from “There is an app for that” to “There is a bot for that.” If we consider bots in even more general terms, we can look at them as a driver for the development of conversational user interfaces. Accordingly, where there is conversation, there are speech, text and language-related objects (emoji, gestures and so on). In my professional practice, I have faced questions of the creation and localization of texts for bots. During my time at Doctor Web, our team worked on a research project — an antivirus bot for the Telegram mes- senger service. We designed and developed a bot that can check files and links on the fly, from within the messenger, regardless of device or platform. The bot can be used as a personal assistant in private chats or even as a guard in group chats. Nobody from our team had created such texts before — we worked on interface texts and docu- Threat detected by bot on Telegram for iOS. mentation for enterprise products. Our challenge in this project was to convert conventional antivirus language patterns into standard messenger phrases. This presents inaccuracy could restrict the functionality or even damage some challenges for technical writers, localization special- the bot’s usability. For translators this seems to be more of ists and translators. an issue — they have to take into consideration not only First of all, bots represent a special interface type: a mix- the source language, but also the functionality of a bot, ture of graphical user interface, text-based user interface and the way users deal with it in the target environment. and voice user interface. Consider a classic command-line A further challenge is the bot voice. Writing bot texts is interface that you can interact with using buttons, text not the same as writing interface texts. If bots are virtual or voice. When using a messenger service, text plays the contacts in a user's messenger, how should they talk? In the most important role, acting as the chief means of control: first person? Should bots continue the app interface style users interact with the bot through special commands, of speech, communicating in abstract phrases? Would the natural language or buttons with text. Bots' output can imperative mood (“Send your current location,” “It's going be any kind of multimedia, maps or actions, but for the to be rainy today, take your umbrella”) be enough? At the most part the output is text. This is a challenge not only same time, if a bot is part of a product line, an extension for content creators but also for translators. Any error or of a product or a companion product, its tone must cor- relate with the product voice or brand, taking into account the specific character of the messenger conversation. For example, casual-sounding first-person speech assigned to an antivirus bot could lower the degree of trust the user I have a favorite joke about places in it, and could pose a risk when discussing informa- this issue: "I �? Unicode." tion security. We decided to divide our bot's messages into two types: messages directly related to security and other messages. These were chiefly the bot's configuration,

January/February 2017 57 Technology

error messages and greeting phrases. or a message preview on a lock screen, We differentiated the bot’s voice on possibly making a mental note to return this basis – in security messages, we to the message later. It is unlikely that used serious and abstract phrases you will do this, however, since we are reflecting the tone of antivirus soft- talking about messenger and not email ware. In all other messages, our bot behavior patterns. With our team, we uses the first person and even makes tried to create catchy bot texts that can jokes. Whatever bot voice is defined, be read and understood instantly. Our it makes sense to commit it to a style approach was first to write texts as if guide to make the source language they were for a desktop antivirus inter- voice more consistent and to ensure face. We then went through many itera- Above: Small talk with a bot. the same tone is mirrored in the tions, reducing the text while keeping Below: Emoji vary from platform to other languages. its original meaning. Afterwards, we platform. Mobile interfaces impel us to simulated spoken dialogs and voiced shorten interface texts, tailoring these phrases. If they fit in the dialog them to small-sized menu items and smoothly, they were accepted. Here is short notifications. Bots force us to an example of a button text evolution in shrink texts for other reasons. One a notification settings menu: of these is the fundamental value of ● Send notifications when links or instant messengers — instant content files contain threats (the initial text, delivery from user to user and from standard for desktop interface users) service to user. Since bots exist and ● Send notifications about harm- operate within messengers, they ful links and files (a shortened ver- should share in this value. sion of the text, adapted for mobile Imagine you are walking with a interface text) friend and receive a message. No mat- ● Report on dangerous links and ter how long the message is, you will files (the final bot text, shortened and most likely read either the first sentence tested as spoken dialog)

There is one more thing that can help to boost content delivery: emoji. Emoji are not just funny yellow faces, but a rich system of characters of any kind. We must learn how to work with them from a localization perspective too. Emoji pose many challenges for content creators and localization specialists. First of all, there are technical issues: operating systems and work- ing tools (text editors, CAT tools, QA tools) must support emoji;

58 January/February 2017 Tools and Services Showcase

Individual Approach. Medical Translations MediLingua is one of Europe’s few companies Customized Solutions. specializing in medical translation. We provide Ciklopea is an award-winning high-tech language all European languages and the major languages solutions partner with more than a decade of of Asia and Africa as well as the usual translation- experience in technical, medical, pharmaceutical, related services. legal, marketing, business and general translation How to Be and localization. Our 450- plus translators have a combined World Savvy medical and language background. With a network of regional production offices and professionally trained, specialized and highly We work for manufacturers of medical devices, International Marketing Communications in-vitro experienced native translators and management instruments, diagnostics and software; Market Research team, Ciklopea is the right choice for all translation pharmaceutical companies; medical publishers; and localization projects in SEE languages. Marketing national and international medical organizations; and medical journals. Ciklopea is certified in accordance with ISO 9001:2008, EN 15038 and ISO 27001:2013. Call or email Simon Andriesen or visit our website for more information.

JFA Marketing MediLingua BV Ciklopea d.o.o. Minneapolis, Minnesota USA Leiden, The Netherlands Zagreb/Rijeka, Croatia • Belgrade, Serbia [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] • www.ciklopea.com www.jfamarkets.com www.medilingua.com

otherwise they will be displayed stood meaning in the target culture, where. Text shortening, however, as unrecognized symbols. I have should be culturally acceptable and is just the first layer of the onion. a favorite joke about this issue: "I should not be offensive. This is why The unpredictability of a platform �? Unicode." In addition, the same translators must be able to see the or device can strongly limit you in emoji can look completely different emoji being used in their tools and, choice of vocabulary and can force on different platforms. Furthermore, if necessary, replace them with more you to use rather abstract phrases: different platforms have different suitable ones in the translation. the most obvious example is that the numbers of available emoji. Let's say There is at least one indisputable verbs click, tap and press should be you have chosen a well-designed example of emoji replacement: the generalized with the word select or clock emoji for your bot from the arrow emoji should be replaced by choose. Because you'll never know Google emoji set. You cannot be sure mirrored ones in right-to-left (RTL) exactly how a user will interact with that this clock will look the same on languages such as Arabic. the system and device, the cross- an iPhone, or that a Firefox user will There is one more important platform Telegram messenger can see it at all. A free and open emoji reason for text shortening: unlike run on almost every smart device. encyclopedia, emojipedia.org, has apps, bots are mostly cross-platform In addition, there are still open ques- helped us to navigate all this chaos. and cross-device. You cannot be tions about how to localize a bot's user- There are also tricky aspects to sure what operating system and generated content: dynamic content handling emoji meanings. First, what device users will run the or content from external sources; how emoji must be an extension of a mes- bot on. It could be a smartphone, far we can continue using machine sage and enhance its meaning. They a laptop, a smart clock or even a translation to resolve these issues; should allow a text message to be Linux-operated refrigerator. These how our approach to localizing the understood more quickly or without devices can have either a large retina voice-controlled bots should look; any text. Secondly, emoji should screen or a small, one-row display, and how we localize bots for virtual convey the same, commonly under- and the bot text should fit every- and augmented reality. [M]

January/February 2017 59 Interpreting

Embracing interpreting delivery platforms

Hélène Pielmeier

Hélène Pielmeier is a senior analyst at CSA Research. As an analyst, she provides research and advisory services for the firm’s LSP platform.

Interpreting delivery platforms (IDPs) that And options abound. Recent technological advances enable remote, video, telephone and even machine have led to an explosion of IDP solutions. Through in-depth interpretation are here to stay. Skeptics of the use research and 45 interviews and demos with technology of technology to deliver quality interpreting ser- vendors, users of such technologies and interpreting experts, vices downplay the value of IDPs and favor face- Common Sense Advisory found solid solutions across four to-face options. But such solutions have a role to categories of products (see Figure 1). Technologies that deliver remote interpreting are no play, and rather than replace in-person interpret- longer sci-fi dreams. They’re here and they work. In theory, ing, they complement it. All language industry first-movers should occupy a prominent position in the mar- participants — buyers, technology vendors, ser- ket. However, many products haven’t moved much past the vice providers and interpreters — need to take starting line. What is the problem? Our research uncovered stock of the options available to them and how to five major issues. best leverage them to service their customers in First, developers often fail to link ideas to client pain points. the best way possible. They create flashy applications as a response to a brilliant idea

60 January/February 2017 Interpreting

Figure 1: Four types of interpreting delivery platforms. Source: "Interpreters at the push of a button," Common Sense Advisory Inc. that has limited, if any, commercial Third, we found that buyer and create a natural fit in everyday demand. The problem is compounded demand for interpreting solutions is technology such as smartphones and by the developers’ frequent lack of evolving. Providers must juggle the newer markets such as wearables. sales and marketing savviness; resell- level of perfection that buyers expect And finally, no matter how good an ers’ lack of motivation to proactively but that they can’t deliver system- IDP is, technology alone isn’t enough. promote the offering; and the language atically quite yet — think giving 24/7 Whether or not developers provide service providers' fear of revenue can- access to video remote interpretation interpreting services along with the nibalization from cheaper solutions. in a broad range of languages. They product, they must ensure there is Second, sellers struggle to find also have to adapt to trends such as a supply chain ready to deliver the regular customers because they have the increase of on-demand avail- services on the platform. However, to create demand for the offerings. ability, the rise of multichannel lan- most developers have failed to line up Most potential buyers are unaware guage access and the disappearance linguist networks. They sometimes of available solutions, don’t know of the traditional separation between end up selling the moon to clients how to choose among the ones they translation and interpreting. by planting the benefits of IDPs in do find or lack funding to actually Fourth, developers have to con- their mind, but do not deliver the buy the product. These are the chal- tinually refine their offerings. Despite infrastructure that comprises a viable lenges whether they seek to broaden advances, they have to constantly commercial offering. In effect, they language access or to substitute an improve audio and video quality, market the equivalent of a car with existing solution with a different one. integrate with various business tools no roads to drive it on.

January/February 2017 61 In general, we found that technol- ogy vendors tend to pass the buck by not providing this essential service component. Instead, they encour- age organizations to “use your own networks,” as if they were doing their prospects a big favor. For most buyers, this openness doesn’t help because many clients want interpret- ing service with the software with a “do it for me” approach. Why don’t the developers provide the interpreters? A good supply chain for remote spoken language requires a different skill set than face-to-face interpreting and round-the-clock coverage. On the skills front, IDPs raise questions about interpreting quality, communicative dynamics and required training. The advent of remote simultaneous interpreting systems is particularly problematic in the sense that it requires simultane- ous interpreters, the rarest type due to the advanced skill set it requires. On the coverage side, many clients expect 24/7 availability of video remote interpreting, even for lan- guages of limited demand, a problem that will be further compounded as more buyers adopt IDPs. Thus, whether you are a tech- nology vendor, a language service provider, a hybrid or a buyer of lan- guage services, you must figure out how to train the next generation of interpreters so they can work effec- tively and remotely with the various IDP platforms. You must also figure out a business model to provide that round-the-clock coverage. Taking a wrong path in tool devel- opment or go-to-market strategy can lead to the premature death of a product. Selecting a tool that isn’t fit-for-purpose can lead to user dis- satisfaction and failed deployments. Yet despite these challenges, IDPs represent significant opportunities for all market participants. The demand is still maturing and has yet to reach its [ ] lionbridge.com full potential. M 62 Technology

Measuring the benefits of using SMT

Andrzej Zydroń Qun Liu

Andrzej Zydroń is the CTO at XTM International and Qun Liu is a professor at Dublin City University and the technical architect of XTM Cloud. He is a leading the theme leader of Understanding Global Content IT expert on localization and related open standards. at ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology.

At present there is no precise indication of that SMT will provide. In the end, the decision on whether the benefits of using statistical machine transla- to use SMT depends on the amount of time saved during tion (SMT) for potential users. The question “is translation. This paper provides a clear indication of the sav- this going to save me time and money, and if so ings you can expect, depending on the key factors that affect how much?” is not addressed in any systematic the quality of the SMT, based on a simple calculation that provides a percentage reduction in translator effort (PRTE) way. The common answer provided by most SMT that can be expected for a given localization project. service providers is “well, it depends.” This is far from the answer that users need in order to make Translation cost an informed decision about whether to go ahead Translation forms part of the cost of localization, and it with SMT. is often all too easy to forget about the other elements of the overall localization process and subsequent costs. In fact, What is lacking in the industry today is a description of translation itself typically accounts for only between 30% the main factors affecting the quality of SMT output and to 50% of the overall cost of a localization project, depend- how you can use them to provide an indication of the savings ing on how much automation is involved in the overall

January/February 2017 63 Technology

Figure 2: Language closeness relative to English

French 0.8

Spanish 0.775

Portuguese 0.775

Italian 0.76 Translator Dutch 0.75 Profit Swedish 0.7

Cost and Overhead Danish 0.65 Figure 1: Typical localization cost breakdown, according to Reinhard Schäler, ASLIB 2002. German 0.6

localization workflow. Figure 1 shows •The relevance of the training data Arabic 0.6 the standard cost model for a manual to the current text being translated. localization process. If we provide mathematical weight- Korean 0.5 The other costs of localization, apart ings to these factors, we can use them from the profit made by the localization very effectively to provide a calculation Finnish 0.5 service provider, are the management of the percentage translator productiv- and administrative costs, as well as ity we can expect to achieve using SMT. Hungarian 0.5 proofreading, review and correction. In order to provide a percentage, we An automated translation manage- will use a probability type estimation Turkish 0.5 ment system (TMS) can significantly for each factor with a range of 0 to 1, reduce the administrative and manage- where the value 1 assumes an idealized Polish 0.45 ment costs of the localization process. perfect situation and 0 the opposite. Let us now consider these factors Russian 0.45 PRTE calculation in detail. Having put the cost of translation Czech 0.45 into perspective, we can now look at Language closeness the factors that affect the quality of SMT output is affected by the dif- Slovak 0.45 SMT and consequently the PRTE. ferences between the source and target PRTE can be defined as the per- languages in terms of various aspects, Chinese 0.4 centage reduction in translator effort including grammar, word order and by using SMT compared to human morphologies. To put it simply, the Japanese 0.25 translation on its own. PRTE is the key closer the two languages are in terms factor that decides how much savings of grammar and word order and mor- value of 0.8, as both languages have you can expect to gain from SMT for phology, the better the outcome. To similar primitive morphologies and a given project. The quality of SMT is take the extreme case of US English word order. For English to German, governed by three major factors: to UK English, we can state that the we would use a value of 0.6 as the •The language closeness: the language closeness is 1.0, as the two differences in morphology and word similarity of the source and target variations of English only differ in some order are much more pronounced. languages in terms of morphology, spelling instances. Using English as the For English to Russian or Polish, the word order and grammar. source again and this time French as proposed value would be 0.45, and for •The amount of training data. the target, we can assume a closeness English to Japanese it would be 0.25,

64 January/February 2017 1 US English to UK English model for translation. When there is 100% no training data, the training set should .8 be 0. As the size of data increases, the US English to French training set size approaches 1, so when 80% the training set size is 1, there is infinite .6 training data. We use the equation US English to German below to estimate TSSF: 60% .25 TSSF=1-2 -Size US English to Size' Japanese Where Size is the actual training data size and Size' is the empirical data size which makes TSSF equal to 25% 0.5 (saving half of the efforts). What this means is that a training Language set size of Size' would result in a reduc- Closeness tion of the translation effort of 50%. In 0 Quality 1 practical terms this would normally equate to around 50,000 segments, Figure 3: Idealized PRTE for SMT, only considering language closeness factors, shows estimated productivity improvement. depending on the material being translated. A training set size of 10,000 as there are significant differences in where English is the source language, segments would produce a TSSF of word order and morphology between depending on the target language. .067 whereas 100,000 segments would the two languages. result in a TSSF of .75 and 200,000 seg- A good indication of the difference Training set size factor (TSSF) ments would produce a TSSF of .9375. in language models can be found at The next key factor regarding SMT Using the above assumptions, as http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/ quality is the size of the training set. Too a very rough rule of thumb, you can — this site provides a comparison for small a training set, and there will not assume that a training set size of some major languages concerning be enough data to provide an adequate 250,000+ segments would provide a the difficulties that native speakers of those languages have in learning English. The degree to which these students have issues with learning English is also indicative of the basic differences in grammar and morphol- ogy between their native tongue and English, and also indicative of the difficulties posed in terms of SMT between English and those languages. Figure 2 provides an indication of the types of factors where English is the source language. The factors have been arrived at from personal experience and should require fur- ther investigation, but they are a good starting point. If all other factors affecting SMT quality are in an ideal state, then the expected productivity improvement, where the language closeness is the only factor, then Figure 3 shows the expected productivity improvement

January/February 2017 65 Technology

Language Closeness we arrive at a PRTE of 100% (because 1 x 1 x 1 x 100 = 100%). This would mean that the SMT output should require no translator intervention, providing a productivity figure of 100%. 0.5 •Translating from English to French, we can assume a language closeness value of 0.8. If we have a slightly less than ideal TSSF of 0.75 but with an ideal DMS of 1, we arrive at a PRTE of 60% (because 0.8 x 0.75 x 1 x 100 = 60%). This would mean that 0 we should expect an improvement regarding translator productivity of 60% compared with a completely manual human translation. •Translating from English to Training Domain Japanese, we can assume a language Set Size Similarity closeness value of 0.2. If we have an ideal TSSF value of 1 and an ideal Figure 4: PRTE three-dimensional graph for various PRTE calculations. DMS of 1, we arrive at a PRTE value TSSF value of approaching 1. Any- using a generalized training set. Specific of 20% (because 0.2 x 1 x 1 x 100 = thing less would result in reducing the domains have their own vocabulary 20%). This would provide an esti- TSSF value roughly by 0.1 for every and phraseology that cannot be ren- mated 20% improvement in translator reduction of 25,000 segments in the dered with a general SMT engine. productivity. training set size. For the purposes of the PRTE A constant problem with SMT is calculation we can assume a value Estimating wisely the issue of out-of-vocabulary words: between 1 (exactly the same specific The PRTE formula is not designed these are words that have not been domain from data for exactly the same to be a hard and fast assessment of the encountered previously in the train- organization) and 0, a completely expected percentage reduction in trans- ing set. If the training set size is too unrelated specific domain. A generic lator effort, but rather an overall rough small then you can expect a commen- SMT engine would rate 0.25 where estimation of what can be expected. surate increase in out-of-vocabulary the subject matter being translated Some of the figures are expected to be word instances, and therefore more related to a highly specific domain at best a guess as regards the DMS and work for the translator. with its own detailed terminology. TSSF figures. The language closeness For the purposes of the PRTE cal- values are also a rough approximation, culation we can assume again a value PRTE formula and some SMT systems with an appro- of between 1 (ideal training set size) The PRTE formula itself takes all priate amount of tuning will be able and 0 (no training set). Zero would be three of the above factors to provide to provide better values. It also does an improbable value (we would not an overall calculation that is easy to not take into account the differences be able to build an SMT engine with implement: between individual SMT engines: some no training data), but we can see that will inevitably be better than others. The if not enough training data is available PRTE = (LC x TSSF x DMS) amount of manual tuning also needs to it would have significant impact on the x 100%. be taken into account, as it requires the quality of the SMT. This can be represented by the input of highly skilled engineers. three-dimensional graph in Figure 4. Nevertheless, the PRTE formula Domain similarity (DMS) To test the validity of the formula provides a guide to what is achievable Empirical evidence has shown that we can try some examples: for a given situation and a rough idea the quality of SMT also depends on the •Translating from US English to UK of the returns that can be expected. quality of the training set. A smaller English we can assume a language close- This is vastly better than nothing, or training set on the same topic domain ness value of 1. If we have an ideal refer- “well, it depends,” which is the cur- produces much better results than ence TSSF of 1 and an ideal DMS of 1, rent situation. [M]

66 January/February 2017 Associations 67 Automated Translation 67 Conferences 67 buyer’s Consulting Services 67 Desktop Publishing 67 guide Education 68 Enterprise Solutions 68 Localization Services 68 and solutions, covering all types of platforms from Nonprofit Organizations 70 desktop to internet to enterprise servers. To help Associations organizations enhance multilingual communica- Terminology Mgmt 70 tion and increase productivity, SYSTRAN delivers Translation Mgmt Systems 70 real-time language solutions for internal collabora- tion, search, eDiscovery, content management, on- Translation Services 71 line customer support and eCommerce along with Translation Tools 73 automatic speech recognition and optical charac- European Language ter recognition. SYSTRAN is the leading choice of global companies, defense and security organiza- Industry Association buyers and providers of language services. We help tions, and language service providers. SYSTRAN companies that buy language services to identify The European Language Industry Association is the official translation solutions provider for the (Elia) is a nonprofit, pan-European forum of trans- and deploy optimal localization solutions to fit their S-Translator, a default-embedded app on the Sam- lation, localization and interpreting companies. needs. We offer veteran expertise as our clients sung Galaxy S and Note series. With a clear mission to promote and facilitate navigate the many personnel, process and technol- Languages: 130+ language combinations business development, professional standards SYSTRAN Software, Inc., San Diego, CA USA ogy decisions involved in running effective local- and the language industry as a whole, Elia creates +1 858 457 1900 ization operations, whether in-house or through events and initiatives to support members from Email: [email protected] external localization vendors. LocalizationGuy also - throughout Europe and beyond. Elia is a commu Web: www.systrangroup.com helps language service providers formulate busi- nity of peers with an atmosphere that fosters open Ad on page 58 ness goals, develop and implement sound business exchange and discussion. Share the enthusiasm! Be strategies and launch strategic marketing efforts. part of the Elia family and grow together. LocalizationGuy is led by a 20-year localization Elia, Doncaster, United Kingdom industry veteran and former chairman of the +39 345 8307084 LocWorld-standard-logo.pdfConferences 1 12/8/14 3:52 PM Globalization and Localization Association. Email: [email protected] LocalizationGuy, LLC Minneapolis, MN USA C

Web: www.elia-association.org M 612-986-3108 Y Email: [email protected] CM MY Web: www.localizationguy.com

CY

CMY

K LocWorld Desktop Publishing LocWorld conferences are dedicated to the lang-uage Globalization and and localization industries. Our constituents are the Localization Association people responsible for communicating across the boundaries of language and culture in the global mar- The Globalization and Localization Association is a fully representative, nonprofit, international industry ketplace. International product and marketing man- agers participate in LocWorld from all sectors and all association for the translation, internationalization, Global DTP localization and globalization industry. The asso- geographies to meet language service and technology Global DTP s.r.o., based in the Czech Republic, offers ciation gives members a common forum to discuss providers and to network with their peers. Hands-on professional multilingual desktop publishing and me- issues, create innovative solutions, promote the in- practitioners come to share their knowledge and ex- dia engineering solutions to the localization industry. dustry and offer clients unique, collaborative value. perience and to learn from others. See our website for Globalization and Localization Association details on upcoming and past conferences. Over the past 12 years, Global DTP has become one Seattle, WA USA, 206-494-4686 Localization World, Ltd. Sandpoint, ID USA of the leading DTP companies. We have been deliver- Email: [email protected], Web: www.gala-global.org 208-263-8178 ing high-quality and cost-effective services for at least Email: [email protected], Web: http://locworld.com eight of the top 20 LSPs and many other companies/ Ad on page 2 agencies. Due to our extensive experience in local- ization and knowledge of the prepress, media and Automated Translation publishing industries, our team of 20 in-house profes- sionals handles more than 1,000 projects every year. Consulting Services Our core services are multilingual desktop publishing, multimedia engineering and testing. Global DTP s.r.o. Brno, Czech Republic +420 603 574 709 SYSTRAN Software, Inc. Email: [email protected] For more than four decades, SYSTRAN has been LocalizationGuy, LLC Web: www.global-dtp.com the market leader in language/translation products LocalizationGuy, LLC, is a consultancy serving

January/February 2017 67 buyer’s guide

Education

STAR Group Alliance Localization China (ALC) Multiple Platforms ALC offers document, website and software transla- STAR is a leader in information management, tion and localization, desktop publishing and inter- Quality Training in localization, internationalization and globaliza- preter services. We focus on English, German and Localization & Global Marketing tion services and solutions such as GRIPS (Global other European languages to and from Chinese, Real Time Information Processing Solution), The Localization Institute is the leader in edu- Japanese, Korean and other Asian languages. We use STAR CLM (Corporate Language Management) cational advancement in the field of localization TRADOS, CATALYST, SDLX, Transit, Wordfast, including Transit (Translation & Localization), — the adaptation of products and services for memoQ and other CAT tools, as well as DTP tools TermStar/WebTerm (Terminology Management), international markets. We organize comprehen- including CorelDRAW, FrameMaker, FreeHand, STAR MT (Corporate Machine Translation), sive, vendor-neutral conferences (LocWorld and Illustrator, InDesign, PageMaker, Photoshop and STAR WebCheck (Online Translation Review- Brand2Global), seminars and round tables where QuarkXPress. Our customer-oriented approach is ing) and MindReader (Authoring Assistance). participants gain insights that help their compa- supported by strong project management, a team With more than 50 offices in 30 countries and a nies better succeed in international business. In of specialists, a large knowledge base and advanced global network of prequalified freelance trans- addition, The Institute has partnered with top uni- methodologies. We always provide service beyond lators, STAR provides a unique combination versities and professional associations to develop our customers’ expectations at a low cost and with of information management tools and services comprehensive certification programs in localiza- high quality, speed, dependability and flexibility. required to manage all phases of the product tion project management, quality management, Languages: Major Asian and European languages information life cycle. Alliance Localization (ALC) Beijing, China internationalization and global digital marketing. 86-10-8368-2169 The Localization Institute Madison, WI USA Languages: All STAR AG (STAR Group headquarters) Ramsen, Switzerland Email: [email protected] 608-826-5001 41-52-742-9200 Web: www.allocalization.com Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: www.localizationinstitute.com Web: www.star-group.net Ad on page 35 STAR Group America, LLC Lyndhurst, OH USA 216-691-7827 Email: [email protected] Ad on page 14 nterprise olutions E S Total Solutions for Your Business ocalization ervices E4NET is a total localization solutions provider, L S specialized in Asian localization covering all major Asian languages (including Korean, Japanese, Sim- plified/Traditional Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese) as well as all other regional tier 3 languages. We Across Systems have 20+ years of extensive and successful local- Multiple Platforms ization production experience with many major Across Language Server is a market-leading soft- projects for customers such as Google, Facebook, ware platform for all corporate language resources ADAPT Localization Services Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, LG Electron- and translation processes. Within a very short ADAPT Localization Services offers the full range ics, Panasonic, IKEA and more. E4NET specializes time, the use of Across can increase the transla- of services that enable clients to be successful in in the fields of IT, but our service also covers other tion quality and transparency, while reducing the international markets, from documentation de- industries such as medical/health care, travel, fash- workload and process costs. The Across transla- sign through translation, linguistic and technical ion, games, financial, governmental and automo- tion management software includes a translation localization services, prepress and publication tive. We continuously develop and apply innovative memory, a terminology system, a powerful PM management. Serving both Fortune 500 and small leading-edge technology such as MT throughout and workflow control tools. It allows end-to-end companies, ADAPT has gained a reputation for our production process, and also provide associated processing for a seamless collaboration of clients, quality, reliability, technological competence services to maximize production/service efficiency. LSPs and translators. Open interfaces enable the and a commitment to customer service. Fields of Languages: 60+ direct integration of third-party solutions like specialization include diagnostic and medical de- E4NET Co., Ltd. Seoul, South Korea CMS, ERP or others. Customers include Allianz vices, IT/telecom and web content. With offices 82-2-3465-8500 Email: [email protected], Web: www.e4net.net Versicherungs AG, HypoVereinsbank, SMA Solar in Bonn, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; and Bar- Technology, ThyssenKrupp and hundreds of other celona, Spain, and a number of certified partner leading companies. companies, ADAPT is well suited to help clients Languages: All achieve their goals in any market. Across Systems GmbH Karlsbad, Germany Languages: More than 50 49-7248-925-425, Email: [email protected] ADAPT Localization Services Bonn, Germany Across Systems Inc. Glendale, CA USA 49-228-98-22-60 877-922-7677, Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: www.across.net Web: www.adapt-localization.com Precision Matters in Translation Ad on page 45 Ad on page 26 For over 17 years, EC Innovations has specialized in customized solutions and subject matter ex- pertise to fit almost any budget for most industry

68 January/February 2017 buyer’s guide

verticals. Originally known as a supplier to sup- Languages: Spanish (all variants), Portuguese (all tions such as the EU (CdT, DGT, European Parlia­ pliers, ECI has quickly become one of the fastest variants), Catalan, Basque, Galician, Valencian, ment) and UNHCR. growing language service providers in the mar- K’iche’, Quechua, Aymara, Guarani Languages: Greek ketplace. Today, EC Innovations has grown into iDISC Information Technologies Barcelona, Spain ORCO S.A. Athens, Greece 14 strategically located global offices with 300+ 34-93-778-73-00 +30-210-723-6001 full-time employees offering full localization sup- Email: [email protected], Web: www.idisc.es Email: [email protected], Web: www.orco.gr port into 60+ languages. EC Innovations continues to build upon its reputation as a customer-centric organization focused on high-quality standards, technological creativity and value-added services to accommodate any type of localization program. Languages: All EC Innovations, Inc. Wilmington, DE USA 312-863-1966 Moravia IT, LLC Localization and Email: [email protected] Moravia is a leading globalization solution provider, Globalization Partner Web: www.ecinnovations.com enabling companies in the information technol- Saltlux is a language service provider that specializes ogy, eLearning, life sciences, consumer electronics in supplying Korean, Japanese, S-Chinese, T-Chinese

and telecommunications industries to enter global and other Asian languages. Our services encom- markets with high-quality multilingual products. pass translation, localization, DTP, MT post-editing, Moravia’s solutions include localization, product planning and writing of technical manuals. We have testing, multilingual publishing, technical transla- extensive experience in medical equipment and tion, content creation, machine translation and pharmaceutical products, cosmetic and cosmeceuti- workflow consulting. Adobe®, IBM, Microsoft, cal products, IT, software, electrical, automotive and EuroGreek Translations Limited Oracle and Toshiba are among some of the leading technical industry, and so on. With 36 years' accu- Established in 1986, EuroGreek Translations companies that depend on Moravia for accurate, mulated know-how, Saltlux will be your ideal global Limited is Europe’s number one Greek localizer, on-time and economical localization. With global communication partner. To learn more, please visit specializing in technical and medical translations headquarters in Brno, Czech Republic, Moravia www.saltlux.com. from English into Greek and Greek into English. has local offices in Europe, the United States, Japan, Languages: Korean, Traditional and Simplified EuroGreek’s aim is to provide high-quality, turnkey China and Latin America. To learn more, please Chinese, Japanese and other Asian languages, Euro- visit us at www.moravia.com. pean languages solutions, encompassing a whole range of client Saltlux, Inc. Seoul, South Korea needs, from plain translation to desktop/web pub- Languages: All Moravia IT, LLC 822-379-8444 lishing to localization development and testing. USA Newbury Park, CA USA, 805-262-0055 Email: [email protected] Over the years, EuroGreek’s services have been ex- Email: [email protected], Web: www.moravia.com Web: www.saltlux.com tended to cover most subject areas, including Ger- Europe: 420-545-552-222, Email: [email protected] man and French into Greek localization services. Ireland: 353-1-709-9822, Email: [email protected] All of EuroGreek’s work is produced in-house by Asia: 86-25-8689-6500, Email: [email protected] a team of 25 highly qualified specialists and is fully Japan: 81-3-3354-3320, Email: [email protected] guaranteed for quality and on-time delivery. Argentina: 54-341-481-2992 Email: [email protected] Languages: Greek Ad on page 76 EuroGreek Translations Limited

London, United Kingdom; Athens, Greece TOIN Corporation 30-210-9605-244 TOIN has achieved a 50-year track record of ex- Email: [email protected] cellence by, as our clients say, being consistently Web: www.eurogreek.com “present” to meet their needs. TOIN offers a spec- Ad on page 37 trum of translation, localization and consulting so- lutions to Global 1000 companies across a range of industries including automotive, IT, telecommuni- Greek Localization Experts cations, life sciences, eLearning, software, gaming, Since 1983 semiconductors and consumer products. TOIN Founded in 1983, ORCO S.A. is a leading trans- provides exceptional strength in Asia as well as a lation and localization provider, specializing in global reach, with offices in Japan, China, Korea, software localization and technical translations the United States and the United Kingdom. iDISC Information Technologies (IT, telecommunication, medical, automotive, Languages: Japanese, Traditional and Simplified iDISC, established in 1987, is an ISO 9001 and engineering, marketing, financial, EU). ORCO Chinese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese and EN 15038 certified language and software com- deals primarily with English into Greek projects, European languages pany based in Barcelona with branches and teams although translation from several other Euro- TOIN Corporation in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Guate- pean languages can be taken aboard. With its Japan: Tokyo, Japan, 81-3-5759-4353 mala. We have dedicated teams for web content, experienced in-house personnel, ORCO offers Email: [email protected], Web: www.to-in.co.jp software localization and translation of technical, high-quality services, including localization, prod- North America: Minneapolis, MN USA, 1-612-986-3108 business, automotive, biomedical and market- uct testing, engineering, DTP and more. Our cli- Email: [email protected], Web: www.to-in.com ing documents. Our software development engi- ent list includes long-term collaborations with Europe: London, United Kingdom, 44-7890-290123 neers and translation teams provide high-quality companies such as Abbott, Canon, Cummins, Email: [email protected], Web: www.to-in.com and on-time production solutions that are cost- Ford, General Electric, Google, IBM, Microsoft, China: Shanghai, China, 86-21-3222-0012 efficient, flexible and scalable. Oracle, Sony and important international institu- Email: [email protected], Web: www.to-in.com

January/February 2017 69 buyer’s guide

management solutions for the translation and localization industry. Plunet BusinessManager provides a high degree of automation and flex- ibility for professional language service providers Vistatec Translators without Borders and translation departments. Using a web-based Originally founded in 1993 in France as Traducteurs platform, Plunet integrates translation software, We have been helping some of the world’s most financial accounting and quality management iconic brands to optimize their global commercial sans Frontières by Lori Thicke and Ros Smith- Thomas to link the world's translators to vet- systems. Various functions and extensions of potential since 1997. Vistatec is one of the world's Plunet BusinessManager can be adapted to indi- most innovative, progressive and successful lo- ted NGOs that focus on health and education, vidual needs within a configurable system. Basic calization solutions providers. Headquartered in Translators without Borders (TWB) is a U.S. non- functions include quote, order and invoice man- Dublin, Ireland, with offices in Mountain View, profit organization that aims to close the language agement, comprehensive financial reports, flex- California, USA. Think Global. gaps that hinder critical humanitarian efforts worldwide. TWB recognizes that the effectiveness ible job and workflow management as well as Languages: All Vistatec of any aid program depends on delivering informa- deadline, document and customer relationship Europe: Dublin, Ireland, 353-1-416 -8000 tion in the language of the affected population. management. North America: Mountain View, CA USA Languages: 190 language pairs Plunet GmbH Berlin, Germany 409-898-2364 Translators without Borders CT, USA +49-(0)30-322-971-340 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: www.vistatec.com Web: www.translatorswithoutborders.org Web: www.plunet.com Ad on page 10 Ad on page 41 Ad on page 13

Nonprofit Organizations Terminology Management The following two organizations are not affiliated.

Wordbee Translator Web-based Kaleidoscope quickTerm manages the entire terminology life cycle. Wordbee is the leading choice for enterprises and language service providers that need to save The Rosetta Foundation If you would like to see your SDL MultiTerm termi- nology used enterprise-wide, Kaleidoscope has the money and make their company run more effi- Access to information is a fundamental and univer- ideal add-on: quickTerm. With quickTerm, individu- ciently. Wordbee has the most complete feature sal human right. It can make the difference between als do not need to be terminology-savvy power users set of any cloud solution: project management, prosperity and poverty, freedom and captivity, life or have their own MultiTerm license to quickly and portal, business analytics, reporting, invoicing and death. The Rosetta Foundation is a nonprofit easily access terminology. Users can simply search and a user-friendly translation editor. Tasks such organization registered in Ireland promoting equal for terminology from within any application or via a as project and workflow setup, job assignment, access to information and knowledge across the web browser. This alone significantly raises the level deadline calculation, multiple phase kick-offs and languages of the world. It maintains the Translation of terminology adherence. Additionally, quickTerm cost management can all be automated in the col- Commons (www.trommons.org) matching non- enables enterprise-wide participation in terminology laborative translation platform. Also, the Beebox profit translation projects and organizations with discovery, approval and revision processes, which connects CMSs, DMSs or any propriety database the skills and interests of volunteer translators. further ties in colleagues in the terminology process. source with the TMS of the translation vendor or Languages: All internal translation team. The Rosetta Foundation Dublin, Ireland Languages: German, English +353-86-7851749 Kaleidoscope GmbH Vienna, Austria Languages: All Wordbee Soleuvre, Luxembourg Email: [email protected] 004 31 253 5352 +352 2877 1204 Web: www.therosettafoundation.org Email: [email protected], Web: www.kaleidoscope.at Ad on page 11 Email: [email protected] Web: www.wordbee.com

Translation Management Systems Translation Commons Translation Commons is concerned with helping all language professionals to maximize their con- XTM: Better Translation Technology tribution to the language industry and to achieve Multiple Platforms due recognition for their work. Translation Commons Las Vegas, NV USA XTM is a fully featured online CAT tool and Plunet BusinessManager translation management system available as a pay- (310) 405-4991 Multiple Platforms Email: [email protected] as-you-go SaaS or for installation on your server. Web: www.translationcommons.org Plunet develops and markets the business and Built for collaboration and ease of use, XTM pro- workflow management software Plunet Busi- vides a complete, secure and scalable translation nessManager — one of the world’s leading solution. Implementation of XTM Cloud is quick

70 January/February 2017 buyer’s guide and easy, with no installation, hardware costs or maintenance required. Rapidly create new proj- and, in other words, to become real partners. If you ects from all common file types using the tem- are looking for a flexible, adaptable partner, we are plates provided and allocate your resources to the your choice. automated workflow. XTM enables you to share Languages: Baltic, Central, Eastern and Southeast- linguistic assets in real time between translators. ern European languages Asianlization with HansemEUG Discover XTM today. Sign up for a free 30-day trial Diskusija Vilnius, Lithuania With more than 180 trained in-house staff and at www.xtm-intl.com/trial. 370-5-2790574 EN15038 and ISO9001 certification, HansemEUG Languages: All Unicode languages Email: [email protected] has become the largest LSP in Korea. Specialized XTM International Gerrards Cross, United Kingdom Web: www.diskusija.lt in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, +44-1753-480-469 Malay, Indonesian, MEA and African languages, Email: [email protected] HansemEUG provides a one-stop solution with Web: www.xtm-intl.com a broad spectrum of language services including: Ad on page 29, 32-33 HQAS (Hansem Quality Audit Services) with a medical advisory board, expedited services with in-house DTP production, MT engine optimi- Your Premier Partner zation, data solution and system development, Translation Services For Your Premier Projects technical authoring and consulting services for FaustTranslations.com provides translation, local- Chinese GB compliance. Our headquarters and ization and transcreation for the European and sales office are located in Korea and the UK, global markets. Contact us if you are searching for and a language center is in Vietnam. a reliable partner for long-term collaboration. Meet Languages: More than 10 us at Elia Together Berlin, GALA Amsterdam and HansemEUG, Inc. Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea Translation Services Provider in SEE LocWorld Silicon Valley. We have been successfully Korea: +82-(31)-226-5042 fulfilling our customers’ needs with our linguistic Email: [email protected] Ciklopea is one of the leading translation and local- UK: 44-(20)-8644-8685 expertise for over 25 years. We specialize in engi- ization services providers in the region of South East Email: [email protected] Europe (SEE) specialized in translation projects, neering, industry, technology, business, economics, N. America: +1-(800)-532-4176 interpreting and localization into the languages of finance, law, marketing and SEO. Our medium- Email: [email protected] the South region (Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Bos- sized company is characterized by utmost flexibil- Web: www.ezuserguide.com nian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Albanian, Bulgar- ity and our special personal touch. We follow the Ad on page 65 ian and Romanian). Our fields of specialization are highest ethical standards in our business. We look manufacturing, consumer products, engineering, forward to working with you. industry, technology, IT, medical, pharmaceuti- Languages: All FaustTranslations.com Troisvierges, Luxembourg cal, health services, life sciences, law, economics, +352-26-90-66-20 business, finance, insurance, marketing, PR, com- Email: [email protected] munication and tourism. Ciklopea is certified in ac- Web: www.fausttranslations.com cordance with ISO 9001: 2008, EN 15038:2006 and Ad on page 12 ISO 27001:2005. LinguaLinx Language Solutions, Inc. Languages: More than 25 languages Ciklopea d.o.o. Zagreb, Croatia LinguaLinx is a leading provider of global content +385-1-3751736 and language translation to organizations around Email: [email protected] the world. The content experts at LinguaLinx help Web: www.ciklopea.com manage and localize messaging to enhance effi- Ad on page 59 ciency and provide consistency across all forms of communication. With offices around the world,

GlobalWay Co., Ltd. LinguaLinx provides organizations with local- GlobalWay, a leading localization company in ization solutions that fit their needs including: Korea, provides professional localization and glo- translation and interpretation, marketing com- balization services with exceptional quality and munications and website localization, translation also offers a wide range of content and document memory deployment, multilingual SEO, trans- management services including voiceover, testing lation readiness assessment and global content and DTP. We have highly qualified in-house lin- management. Unify your global organization with Diskusija – Translation guists who translate and review a variety of content a customized content intelligence strategy and en- and Localization with professional knowledge. Our experienced en- sure that your messages resonate across borders. Diskusija is a regional LSP specializing in the lan- gineers and project managers can help you to get To learn more, visit lingualinx.com. guages of the Baltic countries and Central, Eastern exactly what you want. GlobalWay and its partners Languages: All LinguaLinx Language Solutions, Inc. Troy, NY USA and Southeastern European languages. Our core worldwide are ready to support your growing busi- ness and localization tasks. Feel free to contact us 518-388-9000 business is serving other LSPs. If you need transla- Email: [email protected] for more information. tion into any of these languages, we are ready to Web: www.lingualinx.com : Asian and European help in whatever way suits you best. Your goal to Languages provide your customers with the best services is our GlobalWay Co., Ltd. Seoul, South Korea goal! We always try to be an extension of our client’s +82-2-3453-4924 team in order to understand the requirements and Email: [email protected] the working style, to find the best solutions together, Web: www.globalway.co.kr

January/February 2017 71 buyer’s guide

and international medical organizations; and other customers in the medical sector. Projects include the translation of documentation for medical devices, Lionbridge surgical instruments, hospital equipment and medical Lionbridge enables more than 800 world-leading software; medical information for patients, medical brands to increase international market share, students and physicians; scientific articles; press re- SeproTec Multilingual Solutions speed adoption of products and effectively en- leases; product launches; clinical trial documentation; SeproTec is a multilingual service provider ranked gage their customers in local markets worldwide. medical news; and articles from medical journals. among the top language service companies in the We provide translation, online marketing, global Languages: 45, including all EU languages world. With more than 25 years of experience in content management and application testing solu- MediLingua Medical Translations BV providing high-quality, cost-effective solutions tions that ensure global brand consistency, local Leiden, Netherlands, +31-71-5680862 in translation and interpretation, SeproTec dis- relevancy and technical usability across all touch Email: [email protected] tinguishes itself by utilizing the most advanced points of the global customer life cycle. Using our Web: www.medilingua.com technology and translation management technol- innovative cloud technologies, global program Ad on page 59 ogy, specifically designed to maximize customer management expertise and our worldwide crowd of satisfaction. SeproTec is proud to have achieved more than 100,000 professional cloud workers, we certifications for international corporate social provide integrated solutions that enable clients to responsibility, quality control and environmental successfully market, sell and support their products management. SeproTec has more than 380 employ- and services in global markets. ees and 4500 freelance collaborators within dedi- Languages: All Rheinschrift Language Services cated account teams that provide 24/7 coverage Lionbridge Waltham, MA USA Outstanding localization requires world-class ex- for our clients’ multilingual needs wherever in the 781-434-6000 perience. Rheinschrift gives your business a native world they may be. Email: [email protected], Web: www.lionbridge.com voice in the German-speaking world. We offer Languages: 40 Ad on page 62 more than 20 years’ experience providing transla- SeproTec Multilingual Solutions Madrid, Spain tions and localizations for software and hardware +34 91 204 87 00 manufacturers as well as for the sectors of business, Email: [email protected] technology, legal matters and medicine/medical ap- Web: http://seprotec.com Ad on page 75 plications. Our services also range from glossaries, post-editing, project management and desktop pub- lishing services to many other related services. Rely LocaTran Translations on Rheinschrift to deliver the most competent trans- LocaTran Translations Ltd., established in 2004, lations and meet your deadline, whatever it takes. is an ISO 9001:2008-certified company with its Languages: German to/from major European headquarters in Shanghai, which is China's most languages progressive city. As a team of dedicated profession- Rheinschrift Language Services Cologne, Germany SpanSource als, we offer a range of translation and localization +49-(0)221-80-19-28-0 SpanSource provides translation, localization and services encompassing Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Email: [email protected] related services from Western European languages Thai, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese and other Web: www.rheinschrift.de Ad on page 20 into all regional varieties of Spanish as well as other Asian languages in the diverse fields of marketing, language combinations through our network of se- legal, IT, manufacturing, medical and many more. lect SLV partners. Our domain focus is on health We count Deloitte, AECOM, AIA, ARM, Sam- sung as well as language service providers (LSPs) care and life sciences, software and IT, heavy ma- worldwide among our loyal clientele. At LocaTran chinery and automotive, legal and financial, oil and Translations, we consistently ensure that we pro- gas, corporate training and educational materials. vide first-rate quality, beyond expectations. Our comprehensive service portfolio also includes SEAtongue Ltd. unparalleled desktop publishing and multimedia Languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Malay, With production bases across Asia, SEAtongue localization engineering support for eLearning Indonesian, Vietnamese offers unmatched customer-oriented localization materials. Our in-house staff of 25 includes project LocaTran Translations Ltd. Shanghai, China services with highly specialized in-country, in- +86-21-63760188 managers, senior linguists, desktop publishers, soft- house linguists. We listen to our customers, explore Email: [email protected] ware engineers and graphic designers, which prove a solution to the localization challenges they face Web: www.locatran.com to be fundamental in SpanSource’s centralized, with Asian languages, and provide services tailored customer-centric approach. to meet their specific requirements. Over the past Languages: Focus on Spanish and Portuguese, decade, we’ve been building a team of carefully se- other language combinations through partners lected linguists in key Asian language pairs, while SpanSource SRL Rosario, Argentina constantly improving our quality assurance mea- 54-341-527-5233 sures. We support all time zones, ensuring fast com- Email: [email protected] munication with our customers around the world. Web: www.spansource.com Medical Translations Only Our mission is to help you grow your business as MediLingua is one of the few medical translation spe- your main localization partner in Asia. cialists in Europe. We only do medical. We provide Languages: More than 20 languages all European languages and the major languages of SEAtongue Ltd Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Follow us on Facebook Asia and Africa, as well as translation-related services +603-2169-7407 to manufacturers of devices, instruments, in vitro Email: [email protected] facebook.com/ diagnostics and software; pharmaceutical and bio- Web: http://seatongue.com multilingualmagazine technology companies; medical publishers; national

72 January/February 2017 buyer’s guide

facilitate interoperability and teamwork. All of Kilgray’s products — memoQ, the memoQ server, memoQWebTrans, qTerm and Language Terminal — optimize productivity and control of the entire translation process and environment. Rated #1 by Memsource TripleInk Multilingual Common Sense Advisory among translation-cen- Memsource is an API-enabled translation environ- Communications tric TMS systems, and used by thousands of trans- ment that supports over 40 file formats. It includes As a multilingual communications agency, lators, language service providers and enterprises translation memory, integrated machine transla- TripleInk has provided industrial and consumer throughout the world, memoQ and other Kilgray tion and terminology management, in addition to products companies with precise translation and tools are accepted and appreciated as premiere a web-based and desktop translator’s editor. Some multilingual production services for audio-visual, translation technologies. of the world’s leading translation buyers as well online and print media since 1991. Our experi- Languages: All as translation providers use Memsource for their ence in adapting technical documentation and Kilgray Translation Technologies Ltd. mission-critical projects. In total, more than 40,000 marketing communication materials covers a Béke sugárút, Hungary Memsource users translate over 100 million words +36-30-383-9435 wide range of industries, including biomedical every month. Memsource offers powerful features, Email: [email protected], Web: www.kilgray.com and health care; building and construction; finan- yet it is lightweight, intuitive and fast. Languages: All cial services; food and agriculture; high-tech and Memsource Prague, Czech Republic manufacturing; and hospitality and leisure, as well +4 20 221 490 441 as government and nonprofit organizations. Us- Email: [email protected], Web: www.memsource.com ing a total quality management process and state- of-the-art software and equipment, our team of foreign language professionals delivers the highest quality translations in a cost-effective and time- The tool you want for your projects efficient manner. Ever dreamt of increasing your profits by 15%? Languages: All major commercial languages That’s what you get with MateCat. By reusing con- TripleInk Minneapolis, MN USA tent from public and private translation memories SDL Language Solutions 612-342-9800 and artificial intelligence, MateCat lets you reduce SDL Language Solutions offers a unique language 800-632-1388 the cost and turnaround time of all your transla- technology platform — from translation memory Email: [email protected], Web: www.tripleink.com tions. Integrate machine learning in your transla- productivity tools for the individual translator to col- tions. Focus on creative and cognitive processes laboration software for project managers, from trans- rather than wasting time on repetitive tasks which lation management solutions for LSPs to cloud-based are more suited to machines. Let MateCat take

1 machine translation for corporate localization teams. ranslation ools care of repetitive and boring tasks like fixing ma- T T You are not just investing in a market-leading trans- chine translation errors and placing the tags in the lation productivity tool when you buy SDL Trados target text. Visit www.matecat.com to start trans- Studio, you are investing in a CAT tool that inte- lating. It’s free. grates with the full SDL language technology plat- Languages: All MateCat srl Rome, Italy form including the new innovative Language Cloud. +39 06 90254001 Find out more from www.translationzone.com. Kilgray Translation Technologies Ltd. Email: [email protected] Languages: All Windows Web: www.matecat.com SDL Language Solutions Maidenhead, United Kingdom Kilgray Translation Technologies is the world’s Ad on page 3 +44-1628-417227 Email: [email protected] fastest growing provider of computer-assisted translation tools. In 2005 the company launched Web: www.translationzone.com the first version of memoQ, an integrated cli- Ad on page 4 ent-server translation environment designed to

Advertiser Index ACP Traductera 40 Kaleidoscope GmbH 11 Rheinschrift Language Services 20 Across Systems GmbH 26 lidolang specialist translations 21 Ryszard Jarża Translations 49 ADAPT Localization Services 45 Lionbridge 62 SDL Language Solutions 4 Avanta Translating 49 The Localization Institute 35 SeproTec Multilingual Solutions 75 Casa de Traduceri 49 LocWorld 2 STAR Group 14 Ciklopea d.o.o. 59 MateCat 3 SYSTRAN Software, Inc. 58 EuroGreek Translations Limited 37 MediLingua Medical Translations 59 TextPartner sp.j. 49 FaustTranslations.com 12 Moravia IT, LLC 76 Translators without Borders 41 HansemEUG, Inc. 65 MultiLingual Computing, Inc. 23 Vistatec 10 JFA, Inc. 59 Plunet GmbH 13 XTM International 29, 32-33

January/February 2017 73 Column Takeaway

Beyond the interpretation contract

Giovanna Roeseler As a senior project manager for U.S. Translation Company, Giovanna Roeseler coordinates interpretation solutions for the company's enterprise clients.

I provide interpretation services for large events. The job — I’m going or do things more efficiently. If they to put a positive spin on it here — offers endless opportunities to practice don't really need a piece of equipment flexibility and resourcefulness. Or, alternatively, to go out of one’s mind. that they think they need, I tell them Corporate clients hold conventions and conferences that sometimes my opinion on the matter, even if involve a dozen or more languages. These events range in size from a it lessens the scope of work. For example, a recent client thought hundred or so attendees to several thousand. Unexpected developments she needed Finnish interpreters for happen frequently. a large conference. However, she When random changes come at me on the job, it's usually not even the cli- had only two Finnish conference ent's fault. The poor corporate event manager has to juggle so many different attendees and because Finnish things that our part — language services — barely registers among the many interpreters are quite rare, the cost components she must orchestrate. As she's wading through all of this stuff, was going to be exorbitant for such and adapting to her own curve balls, she usually has no choice but to ask her a small audience. I reached out subcontractors to adapt along with her. And this presents an opportunity. If to a colleague in Finland and he I'm able to keep up with my clients' needs, they remember me and appreciate confirmed that English is widely it. I'm no longer just another vendor, I'm a trusted friend and associate. spoken in Finland, and that likely the Here are a few of the things that can go wrong. My fellow project managers two Finnish attendees spoke English. and I have dealt with almost all of them — sometimes more than once. Based on this intel, the client decided [[ Hotels mess up reservations for my interpreters to forego the Finnish interpretation. [[ Flights are delayed or canceled In another event, I recommended [[ Interpretation equipment gets lost in transport to an event that my client buy her own inter- [[ The client needs more languages than the contract specified pretation headsets directly from our [[ The client needs fewer languages than the contract specified supplier rather than renting them from [[ The client dislikes some aspect of an interpreter and I scramble for a us. She was a bit surprised, but it was replacement clearly the best thing for her to do. [[ An interpreter is too sick to work the day of an event (rare) Post-interpretation, I always circle [[ A client holds more breakout sessions than planned, which necessitates back to debrief with my client. We additional equipment, technicians, interpreters or all of the above discuss what went right, what went [[ The event gets extended beyond the original scope wrong, if I could have done better, and [[ The event gets shortened whether anything could be handled [[ The client makes any number of arbitrary and unforeseeable requests differently next time. We part ways [[ Equipment malfunctions occur (rare) with my client (hopefully) knowing On paper, my interpretation clients hire me to do a specific job. If I did that I'm genuinely looking out for only the job for which they hired me, they would be satisfied. However, I want them. If you go the extra mile for your them to be more than satisfied. I actively look for ways they can save money clients, they're bound to notice. [M]

74 January/February 2017 AAFF_Seprotec_wordsmatter_215,9x276,2mm_V02_it will_EN.pdf 1 31/5/16 13:45 WHEN WE SAY It will be ready at 10 p.m. WE

C M MEAN Y

CM

MY It will be ready at 10 p.m.

CY

CMY

K In our dictionary, the word trust is defined as the most important element of our 4:28 pm relationship with our clients.

SeproTec is ranked among the world’s top 30 language service providers. Our

presence is global and we offer translation, 09:45 am localization and interpreting services in any language. Furthermore, our 25 years of experience in the field have earned us the most important international certifications.

We can assure you that only new clients 6:19 pm feel uncertainty. Once you’ve worked with us, it completely disappears.

07:54 am WORDS MATTER

www.seprotec.com The content localization crisis

Why old-school localization is a threat to your digital content

The way companies communicate has changed This localization gap has reached crisis proportions. enormously. The kinds of content, channels for distributing But it’s a hidden crisis, where the penalties you pay are it, and the sheer volume of content have all evolved. spread throughout your company in a thousand places. But the way most companies localize that content has We believe that old-school localization won’t cut it anymore. not. The mindset, processes, and technologies are all still It’s time for a faster, better approach suited to the way the same ones that were developed in a slow, analog, we use content today. Read our manifesto “The content print-centric world. localization crisis” and find out why.

moravia.com/manifesto