June 2002

ISSN 1649-2358

TranslationVendor WebServicesStandardisation to streamlinelocalisation workflow PAGE 10

LRC LocalisationConference 2002

PAGE 26

SDL introduces Desktop Productdivision PAGES 6

eCULTUREThe threat to indigenous cultures& how to counteract PAGES 9,14

New BusinessModels

VOL. 1, Issue 1Issue sponsored by:

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR LOCALISATION

XLIFF at UNICODE PAGE 23

JUNE 2002 CONTENTS.editorial 3LOCALISATION FOCUS

Localisation Focus is the publication of theLocalisation Research Centre (LRC). It is dis-tributed free of charge to professionals workingin the localisation industry. Please notify thecentre if you or one of your colleagues wouldlike to receive Localisation Focus regularly.

Editor: Reinhard SchälerAssistant editor: Raphaëlle FraysseProduction editors: Catherine Osborn,

Alan PhelanOrigination: Litho StudiosPublished by: Localisation Research Centre

(LRC), Department of Computer Science andInformation Systems (CSIS), University ofLimerick, Limerick, Ireland.

Tel. +353-61-202881Fax +353-61-202734Email: LRC@ul.ieWeb http://lrc.csis.ul.ie

PUBLISHER INFORMATION

Sponsorship and advertising

To advertise in or to sponsor an issue ofLocalisation Focus, contact the LRC for moreinformation at lrc@ul.ie and find out about thebenefits.

Precision Media Globalization Systems,part of the Perigord Communications group,understands the complexities involved in theproduction of any multilingual project andoffers the experience and expertise of over10 years DTP and Prepress localization.

Precision offer fast, efficient, process drivencontrol over the localization of high endpackaging, instructional manuals or promo-tional literature while incorporatingIntegrated Quality Control procedures,and a Web Management Interface thatallows project tracking online.

Precision has progressed beyond the DTParena and has handled multilingual projectsinvolving the localization of multimedia CD-ROMs, courseware and websites.

Precision Media Globalization SystemsKylemore Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10

email: peter@precision-mgs.comweb: www.precision-mgs.comphone: 01-6230750

RWS Group and Web of Culture join forces..................................................................

The provider of translation and localisationservices RWS Group, LLC, and Web of Cul-ture (WOC), an expert in website globalisation consulting, announced formationof a strategic alliance to provide expanded web-site globalisation services. Under the terms ofthe agreement, the companies will offer clientscomplete integration of services for launchingtheir websites into global markets.

The partnership between RWS Group and Webof Culture was formed to address the globalcompetition-based needs associated with therapidly developing web globalisation market.

For additional information you can write tonews@translate.com.

Rubric Director advising in Austin..................................................................The provider of localisation and translationservices Rubric announced that Jessica Rathke,Director of Business Development, had beennamed to serve on the Austin Community

College Localization Generalist CertificateProgram advisory board.

Rathke said that Rubric was firmly committed to raising the awareness of ourindustry, attracting new people to the industry, broadening the skillsets of peoplecurrently working in localisation, and providing them with an educational resourceto acquire the skills they needed.For more information visithttp://www.rubric.com, orhttp://mistsy.home.texas.net/acc/l10n/.

Trados and Uniscape merger..................................................................

TRADOS Incorporated, a leader in languagetechnology solutions, and Uniscape, Inc.announced that they had reached an agreementto join forces in a merger. This will bring togetherthe companies’ complementary product linesand people to offer a complete business solutionthat extends across the entire translation valuechain, from the global corporation to individ-ual translation professionals.

Frank Gilbane of Gilbane Report expects thismerger to allow for the seamless linking of corebusiness processes with the back-end businessprocesses in the translation supply chain.

For more information visit www.trados.com orwww.uniscape.com

Send your press releases to press-releases-lrc@ul.ie and get your company on LocalisationFocus INDUSTRY.news page.

GET NOTICE FOR YOUR COMPANY

INDUSTRY.news

This is the first issue of Localisation Focus – the internationaljournal for localisation. However, as most of our readers willnotice, this is not an entirely new magazine.

It builds on a success story that started in 1996 with the publi-cation of the first issue of Localisation Ireland, the LRC’s newsletter:designed with a word processor, photocopied in black and white, andhand-stapled. Over the years, Localisation Ireland became one of theindustry’s best known printed publications. It is circulated – free-of-charge – to approximately 2,000 localisation professionals worldwideand financed entirely through generous industry sponsorship andadvertisements.

As the industry and the activities of the LRC developed over theyears, so did Localisation Ireland.Two recent developments, made usre-consider the role of our publication: (1) the increasingly dialecticrelationship between localisation tasks (becoming less technical) andlocalisation tools, technologies and standards (becoming more sophis-ticated); (2) a renewed focus of the LRC to conduct and support local-isation research.

This is why, in our last issue (March 2002), we doubled the publi-cation’s pages from sixteen to thirty-two and introduced a new sec-tion, Localisation Central – the forum for localisation research,development and strategic business decisions.

We decided to launch Localisation Central to respond to the require-ment of professionals for a dedicated localisation journal.We intendto grow Localisation Central and make it the localisation profession-als’ technical and business reference point.We also intend to developand grow the established sections of our publication, among themIndustry.news, Country.focus, Tools.review and Personal.profile.

What started as a newsletter for the localisation community in Ire-land, is now fast becoming a journal for localisation professionalsworld-wide. We hope that it will be a lively forum for all the differentprofessions with an interest in localisation, whether they are basedat universities, training providers, publishers, vendors or tools andtechnology developers. They all need to talk to each other and beaware of each other’s ideas and needs.

Localisation Focus – the international journal for localisation willprovide them with a dedicated and committed platform.

Reinhard Schäler

READERS’ FORUMLocalisation is translation.Why translators should, finally, reclaim local-isation as their own.Localisation Focus invites its readers to comment on this statement andsend their contributions to LRC@ul.ie by 15 July 2002.

4Bugs: Is it time for realistic prevention of these pests?Padraig Bracken

6Localisation Focus talks with SDL’s new head of DesktopProducts

8Localisation à la RusseVitaly Borok & Gilbert Doctorow

Cultural adaption – More than what meets the eye?Reinhard Schäler

10Web services – The future of localisationBill Looby

13Case Study: Translation servicesPeter Reynolds

14Are language and culture being devoured?Aidan Collins

The Second International LRC Localisation Summer School

19Localisation tools developmentFeliciano Donoso

PASSOLO 3.5Rafael Guzman

RC-WINTRANS 6.018 LiteMarkus Naumann

XLIFF at UnicodeReinhard Schäler

29LRC news

30The LRC and its functions

When you change address, remember to update us at LRC@ul.ie! Thisway you will be able to enjoy reading your magazine wherever you go.

From the Editor

26LRC 2002 eContent Localisation

27Localisation Technology Laboratory and Showcase

28Localisation in the advertisement industryJesús Maroto

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that the testing team does not find bugs in the firstplace. This may seem a blindingly obvious solutionthat would have been achieved already if it werepossible — but in many areas this actually has beenachieved.

If we look at current software products and anarea like Help. The notion of dedicating an entirea testing team to perusing final translated Help forbroken links or missing files or headers and such isnow inconceivable.

Yet this used to be the case. Help is still a largecomponent of most products, but when the finaltranslated Help is received, it is in many cases sim-ply dropped into the build.

There is no major test pass nor help testingcycle. At best there is an acceptance test. So howdid Help evolve from being a major drain on testing resources to a reliable component that doesn’t require testing?

Resolving bugs before they get to the test team

The first step was to identify the test cases beingrun. These tests were automated using custommacros and bespoke software tools as each com-pany or group developed its own Help softwaretests. This automation, while making the actualtesting easier, still required the whole bug trackingsystem.

Later, the tests were included in the translationtools. Testing was still necessary, but the bugs wereresolved before being handed to the test teams. Asthe tools evolved, these test cases formed a basisfor rules that were routinely included in the trans-lation tools, thus preventing the bugs from beingintroduced in the first place.

Similarly, with the actual software, tools like Cat-alyst or Passolo are already ensuring that “hot key”,“hit letter” bugs and “truncations” are becominga thing of the past in mainstream products and arecarrying the lessons into the new technologies aswell.

The type of intelligent test automation providedby such tools not only ensures that bugs are pre-vented but also allows engineers to find and fix bugsbefore releasing the build to QA. This eliminatesthe busy work associated with bugs discovered oncea build has been released to the test team. ■

Padraig Bracken is a freelance localisation con-sultant. He can be reached at Padraigb@pobox.com

Bugs: is it time for realisticprevention of these pests?

GENERALLY test automation is seenas part of the testing cycle. Like man-ual testing, it is expected to uncoverbugs. In my opinion, this view on testautomation is approaching the whole

issue of bugs from the wrong direction. A shippedproduct must be bug-free at time of release. How-ever, rather than using test automation to supple-ment a testing team in finding bugs, test automationshould be used more often to prevent bugs frombeing introduced in the first place.

The perception of testing is often that the testingteam does no more than hack away at the productlike a bunch of monkeys. So it’s easy to fall into thetrap of using test automation to create faster mon-keys. But as we all know, testing is much morethan hacking away at the product. So whyconsider using test automation in thisway?

In the March issue of LocalisationIreland, Tom Connolly said: “Locali-sation lies in the challenging territorybetween the completion of productdevelopment and the beginning of theactual revenue stream.” He discussed how thisaffects localisation.

The impact of this order of doing things is alsofelt directly by the QA or testing teams. Testing isgenerally regarded (correctly) as labour intensive,time-consuming and costly. In most cases, the actualtesting is also repetitive and tedious for the the tester.

Place in the cycleBecause of its position in the localisation cycle,

testing is nearly always on the critical path, or worse,at the end of it. The testing time invariably has toabsorb some delays. You all know the reasons —late builds, late translations, late changes, unfore-seen bugs and so on.

So now you have a process that is monotonousyet extremely time sensitive, constantly requiringthe utmost care and attention to detail from thetesters.

However, all this testing is unavoidable and thereare few shortcuts. So a lot of time is invested intoways of making testing less time consuming (nottoo mention more cost effective), and if these effortsremove some of the more tedious tasks, so muchthe better.

The first thought is “This is taking forever, weshould automate the testing”.

The idyllic scenario in which a testing “team” ofjust one person sits at his or her desk, presses a keythat launches a host of automated macros and toolsdelivering a fully tested language build, with all thebugs found and logged in time for lunch, is not goingto happen.

At least it won’t happen by introducing test

automation after the fact — or in this case after thebuild.

Will test automation play a huge role in:

■ Reducing time spent testing the same areasrepeatedly?■ Reducing or removing some of the moretedious testing tasks?■ Removing whole classes of bugs?

Yes, of course it will, but not through verifica-tion or reporting tools that test after the fact, butmuch more likely through Damian Scattergood’svision of automated engineering as described in the

March issue of Localisation Ireland.The criteria used to determine where

automated testing will be used is straight-forward. Test automation should ide-ally be used on tests that: (1) take thelongest time to run, (2) are extremelyrepetitive and (3) are labour intensive.

However, in many cases this testautomation would still appear to be reliant

on discovering bugs that have already foundtheir way into the build. The test team is expectingto find bugs, which bring with them all the addi-tional work and record keeping involved when atest team finds a bug.

So let us look at the cycle of work involved whena bug is found in a build. To begin with, the bugactually has to be found by an observant tester, thenreported and logged in the bug database, resolvedby a software engineer and/or a translator and finallyverified by the tester.

Reporting and logging timeMany times the easiest step is finding the bug.

What makes a test time consuming and difficult isoften the number of bugs and the work associatedwith logging each one into a bug database, whichcan take several minutes per bug. This may not seemlike a long time, but consider what happens when10, 20 or 50 bugs are found, each taking three min-utes to enter.

This bug inventory work carries over to the engi-neer fixing the bug. A clipped string should be fixedin minutes (maybe even seconds), but updating thebug report often takes many times longer than ittakes to fix the bug. However, the record keepingdoes not end there. The tester now has to verify theresolution of the bug and close the report. Is it anywonder then that most testers want to move intoengineering?

Avoiding the busy workSo how can this time spent on tracking the bugs

be avoided? Well, one solution would be to ensure

Is test automation a good

thing or a bad thing? That

is of course a rhetorical

question; test automation is

a very good thing, but not

always for the expected

reasons, says PADRAIG

BRACKEN.

Padraig Bracken

When a tester is shown new tools or test automation to prevent bugs hisor her first reaction is often: “What am I going to do now? This tool isdoing my job.” This isn’t true because test automation is not a replace-ment for a test team.By preventing bugs, test automation allows testers to focus on new fea-tures and new technologies. This allows testers to approach testing in awholly different way. For some components at least, testers are now run-ning scripts to prove there are no bugs rather than searching for bugs

that are known to be in the build.Intelligent test automation will allow testers to work in a better way aswell as allowing the work itself to become more interesting. The testingrole now becomes true Quality Assurance: that is, proving there are nobugs, looking at new tools, investigating new technologies (and how totest them), rather than quality control (hacking away at the product tofind bugs and report them).Who knows, maybe one day all engineers will want to be testers!

What about the tester?

So how can this time spent on tracking thebugs be avoided? Well, one solution wouldbe to ensure that the testing team doesnot find bugs in the first place. This mayseem a blindingly obvious solution thatwould have been achieved already if it

were possible — but in many areas thisactually has been achieved.

JUNE 2002 SPONSOR.close-up 7LOCALISATION FOCUS SPONSOR.close-up JUNE 20026 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Localisation Focus (LF): Before weget started Brian, can you tell us a lit-tle about how you came in to thelocalization industry?Brian Briggs (BB): That starts aboutseven years ago as one of the foundersof Language Partners International.LPI specialized in the sales and imple-mentation of translation and local-ization productivity products. Overthe years we represented many prod-ucts like Trados, Transit, Catalyst,Déjà Vu, SDLX and a number of oth-ers. At the end of last year, LPI wasacquired by SDL International for thepurposes of forming a newautonomous products division whichI now head up. Prior to that, I haveheld various executive positions insales, marketing and consulting withcompanies that include IBM, anAnderson Consulting spin-off and sev-eral software companies.

LF: What SDLproducts are nowmanaged by thenew Desktop Prod-ucts division?BB: We manage all

of the Computer Assisted Translation(CAT) and localization tools. Ourflagship product is our new SDLLocalization Suite™ (or LocSuite™as it is also called) which we think willhelp set the direction for the nextphase in the industry. Customers, bothon the client and service side, havegrown tired of managing all of thepoorly-supported, piece-part tools andutilities found in the market today.Much like what happened with officesystems ten years ago, LocSuite con-solidates all of the components neededfor end-to-end localization on thedesktop. Our second product is SDLXTranslation Suite which is a subset ofLocSuite targeted for agencies, free-lancers, and companies focused exclu-sively on documentation.

LF: What’s different about Localiza-tion Suite? BB: Products like Catalyst™ havedone well on the front end withWin32 UIs, and Trados™ has donewell with RTF documentation. Loc-Suite covers all of that ground andmore with the inclusion of industry-standard QA tools (formerly sold as

LF: But the hybrid organization?

BB: I think we now see that most ser-vice companies are avoiding internalCAT and localization tool develop-ment because it is enormously expen-sive and it locks them into aproprietary image. However, we’vealso come to learn that the tool spaceis too small to produce a profitable,free-standing company of significantsize. The largest of which today isprobably one tenth the annualturnover of SDL or Lionbridge.

SDL’s new hybrid model positionsus with two separate businesses, eachwith their own value proposition: aworld-class globalization serviceprovider and a best-of-breed toolprovider. These two businesses areable to capitalize on the shared costsand synergy while keeping their mar-kets open and distinct.

LF: But aren’t you really the samecompany?BB: Well yes we are one company, butrather than being brothers and sisters,we are close cousins. We cometogether for family celebrations whena customer is looking for a combinedproduct/service solution, but we oth-erwise operate quite happily as sepa-rate families with separate personnel,separate infrastructures, separate salessystems, and separate business objec-tives.

LF: But why is that good for your cus-tomers?BB: I think it gives them the best ofboth worlds. SDL Localization Ser-vices continues to progress in pro-viding world-class localization serviceswhile SDL Desktop Products is highlymotivated to become a leader in local-ization productivity tools. We realizethat over half of our market for prod-ucts will come from outside SDL ser-vice clients and oftentimes from SDLservice competitors. To be successful,we need to remain responsive to thosemarket requirements. To get therewe’ve chosen to incorporate advancedarchitectures built on industry-stan-dard components that exploit openstandards such as TMX today, andXLIFF tomorrow as it becomes rati-fied by OASIS.

We also have the advantage ofbeing backed by one of the world’slargest localization companies. Wehave realistic expectations of the mar-

ket and our efforts can be fundedfrom within allowing us to focus onimproving our products and growingmarket share rather than exit strate-gies. We also have one of the largestproving grounds for our productsbefore they go out the door. Becauseof that, I think our customers see thatwe provide a level of safety and com-fort that no one else can.

LF: But aren’t other companies also fol-lowing this hybrid company model youreference?BB: It’s hard for me to gauge thatsince we don’t run into them thatoften and I suppose it’s customerswho will really have to decide that.My personal criteria for determiningthis would be: can I go to a websiteand either buy the product or at leastfind out prices? Can I make aninquiry or get information about the

product without first going througha services sales representative? Doesthe product have a significant installbase within other service providers?

LF: But why now? We hear others saythat the computer assisted translationmarket is now a mature, commoditymarketplace and it is time to move onto greener pastures.BB: Well maybe it is but what wouldreally signal that? Has CAT func-tionality really been "featurized" intoother products as some have sug-gested? Well I think that’s true abouttranslation memory, but frankly,translation memory is the easiest partof the whole puzzle. Filtering tech-nology, translator ergonomics, processand project management, terminol-ogy management, to name a few arethe more challenging pieces and Iwould contend that we’re still earlyin the life cycle of those components.And filtering technology may neverbecome mature with the pace ofchange in development. For example,we’ve introduced a plug-in COMarchitecture that allows us to morereadily adapt our filters to the chang-ing data streams of XML, .NET andJ2EE. Historically we’ve been aheadof competition on this and we thinkthis architecture will allow us to con-tinue to lead the market.

LF: What are some of the prioritiesyou’ve established for SDL’s newDesktop Products Division?

BB: First off, we’ve improved ourcapabilities for supporting our cus-tomers. We’ve done away with theneed for dongles (HASP security keysfound on most products) and havegone to electronic distribution withsoft-lock registration keys. This helpseliminate a big asset managementheadache for customers. We’ve estab-lished a 24/7 support center for cus-tomer technical support, a newcustomer relationship managementsystem, and a new web-enabled train-ing platform. Secondly, we’ve recog-nized that the capabilities of ourproducts are way ahead of our mar-keting efforts. We’re winning againstcompetition at companies like GettyImages and Macromedia to name justtwo - now we need to establish thebrand recognition these productsdeserve. Thirdly, we’ve refined ourproduct strategy. SDLX was one ofthe first products in the market to sup-port XML. You’ll see us take activerolls in the new OASIS XLIFF Tech-nical Committee and we’ve steppedup our involvement with the LISAOSCAR committee to make sure thatTMX certification of products in themarketplace becomes a reality. Lastly,while others are downsizing, we’reactually increasing our developmentteam.

LF: What would you recommend tosomeone who was interested in lean-ing more about SDL Desktop Prod-ucts?

BB: Well you can certainly check outour website but I’d rather have youcall us. Spend five minutes telling usabout your situation and we’ll let youknow right away if we can help you.We call it "going for the no" – if oursolution isn’t the right fit for you,we’re going to tell you within the first15 minutes because we know that"time is money" for both of us, justas it is in localization time-to-market.

■

Desktop Products at SDL Interna-tional. he can be reached atbbriggs@sdlintl.com

LocalisationFocus speakswith SDL’s newHead ofDesktopProducts

SDL are a company in constant expansion which have been actively redefining

who they are and how the different divisions of the company work together to

best serve their customers’ interests. We spoke to Brian Briggs, SDL’s new Head

of Desktop Products about this situation.

HelpQA, HtmlQA and ToolProof),machine translation for prototypingand pseudo-translation, and a processenvironment optimized for multi-fileoperations with complex, tagged fileformats like XML. With LocSuite,the customer gets everything theyneed to improve and lower the costof their entire localization process.And it all comes in one package at avery competitive price.

LF: Going back to the acquisition ofLanguage Partners, was this a goodthing?BB: Actually it was quite good interms of blending two sets of com-plimentary strengths but it has alsoallowed us to create a new hybridorganization that really hasn’t existedbefore. In the early days we had somelocalization service companies posi-tioned with tools as competitive mar-keting weapons like ForeignDesk™and Joust™. They were used todemonstrate the company’s technicalexpertise and were great fun todemonstrate while selling localizationservices. In most cases, they reducedthe companies operating costs andallowed them to recognize increasedmargins. It was highly effective forthose larger companies that couldafford to invest in creating the technology.

This helped foster the emergenceof product-only companies, most ofwhich had a very difficult time inthose early days until companies likeMicrosoft heightened the industry’sfocus on them. But right on the coattails of that discovery came the dot-com era of over-investment. A lot ofmoney flowed into the CAT tool /globalization space before anyone hadrealistically sized the market opportunity.

LF: So where are we now and why isSDL’s new Desktop Products divisiona new hybrid organization?BB: We’re now at a point where mostof the prominent product-only com-panies are anxiously trying to deter-mine how they will ever produce anadequate return for their investors.Progress on their products has slowedas they’ve moved to reduce their burnrate and find a new end game. At thesame time, most service companiesare pulling back from their CAT tooldevelopment efforts and some arehoping the open source communitywill now drive the continuation ofthose tools. In the meantime, the glob-alization landscape moves on withnew and relentlessly changing local-ization environments like XML andits derivatives.

“We’re winning against competition at companies likeGetty Images and Macromedia to name just two – nowwe need to establish the brand recognition these products deserve…”

“SDL’s new hybrid business model positions theDesktop Products division as a separate business with its own value proposition…”

“We realise that over half of our market forproducts will come from outside SDL serviceclients and oftentimes from SDL service competitors”

SDL’s tools expert Brian Briggs

COUNTRY.focus JUNE 20028 LOCALISATION FOCUS JUNE 2002 LOCALISATION.central 9LOCALISATION FOCUS

Russia:

MANY multinational companies recognisedthe huge business opportunities that Rus-sia presented after the fall of Communismand began their development work in thecountry in the early 1990s. Already there

was a requirement for the localisation of products to meetthe needs of the Russian market. At the same time, giventhat a majority of the citizens of other former Soviet republicshad a good command of the Russian language, Russianlocalised versions were also available to support productowners’ business moves into these CIS (former Soviet states)markets. Accordingly, many large companies set about cre-ating Russian versions of their software, and by 1998versions of popular products such as those ofMicrosoft, Oracle and Lotus were avail-able for sale in Russia.

The Russian financial crash ofAugust 1998 and the ensuing eco-nomic crisis interrupted these local-isation activities. Of course, thelargest players did not leave themarket. They understood verywell the strategic importance ofRussia. But smaller companies put

their projects on holdand adopted a wait-and-see position in thehope of better times. Theyear 1999 was tough formost Russian companies activein the field of localisation. How-ever, by the year 2000 we saw a clearimprovement in the Russian economy, and thelocalisation market came alive again. By 2001business activity had risen above the level of1998.

As the localisation market consolidated, qual-ity requirements grew steadily. At the very start,international companies worked with individ-ual freelance translators or assigned localisationtasks to the staff of their affiliated offices in Rus-sia. This undoubtedly kept expenses to a mini-mum, but the quality reflected the low price paid.Today, more and more companies use the ser-vices of professional suppliers of localisation ser-vices.

It’s no secret that high quality localisation canonly be achieved by close collaboration of agroup of professionals from different back-grounds — among them translators, technical

experts, DTP engineers, project managers, programmers andtesters. It takes considerable financial and organisationaleffort to create such a team. For this reason the number of

serious players on the Russian localisation market is no morethan a dozen or so. One of these key players is STAR Group,which has been active on the Russian market since 1995.From its foundation, STAR SPb Ltd in St Petersburg has hadtechnical translation and software development among itscore competences. And it is the skilful combination of thesecapacities that ensures success in the field of localisation. Todate, STAR SPb Ltd has more than 150 employees, and it isone of the leading Russian companies in the field.

Today any company thinking of releasing software prod-ucts on the Russian market can find high quality localisationservices on offer. However, bad localisation work is not the

rarity one might expect. Why is that so? There are anumber of possible explanations, but one of

the most frequently encountered is that acompany turns to a Western Localisa-

tion Service Provider (LSP) to take careof its localisation into Russian. ThatLSP, in turn, probably gets the jobdone outside of Russia but with thehelp of some Russian émigrés whopossibly left the country decadesago.

In today’s world, where tech-nologies are fast changing and in

which neologisms arise every day,someone who has left the country of

his or her native language for as shorta period as a year is not always able to

ensure terminological accuracy any longer.This is all the more true in the IT field or other

advanced technologies, where Russian terminology isnot particularly stable as yet. This results in Russian versionsof software programmes that are sometimes completelyunsuitable for use.

What can we suggest to a company considering the bestway to localise its software products for the Russian market?If the Russian localisation is going to be done at the sametime as localisation into several other languages, then it doesmake sense to turn to an LSP who offers many languages.However, it pays to check whether this LSP has an office inRussia capable of rendering the full spectrum of services,including testing. If the translation into Russian is going tobe carried out separately, then it is undoubtedly worth seek-ing a Russian supplier. The demands made on this suppliershould be the same: a full range of services, demonstratedquality, reliability and a track record of satisfied customers.

Vitaly Borok is the Director of Translation and Localisa-tion Services, STAR SPB Ltd, he can be contacted atVitaly.Borok@star-group.net

Gilbert Doctorow is Marketing Director of STAR SPBLtd, his email address is Gilbert.Doctorow@star-group.net

Localisation à la Russe‘Do you speak Russian?’If the answer is ‘nyet’, then you are not among the more than 250 million people who

actively use this language in their daily lives. Reaching this large number of people with speedy and high quality

localisation of products into Russian is crucial. VITALY BOROK and GILBERT DOCTOROW explain why.

FROM TOP: VitalyBorok and GilbertDoctorow.

It pays to check whether

this LSP has an office in Russia

capable of rendering the full spec-

trum of services, including testing. If

the translation into Russian is going to

be carried out separately, then it is

undoubtedly worth seeking a

Russian supplier.

E verything in localisationnowadays is content – andthe most interesting prob-

lem in content localisation is cul-tural adaptation. Experts discussthe matter at length and attemptto provide detailed guidelines;one just has to browse throughthe pages of any of the relevantmagazines to encounter one ofthe many recently published arti-cles. The topic is also coveredextensively by internationalisa-tion and localisation confer-ences.

Richard Ishida, one of theworld’s best known authoritieson the development of interna-tional content, gave an impres-sive overview with manyextremely interesting examplesof the problems developers ofglobal content and localisershave to be aware of. In hiskeynote speech at the recent 21stInternational Unicode Confer-ence in Dublin he covered handsignals, colours, symbols, icons,sound and other entities whichcan mean very different thingsto people from different culturalbackgrounds.

The obvious underlyingassumption of the guidelinesprovided to international devel-opers and localisers by theexperts is that in order to adaptsoftware to the cultural require-ments of users, you just have topaint the house again – only thistime in different colours, i.e.adapting the colour to the cul-tural context. For example, redis an alarming colour in manyWestern countries, white canindicate a pure or basic state,and black is sombre. This is dif-ferent in Asian countries likeChina where red expresses joy,white indicates mourning andblack is "the lucky colour".Green is associated with lushgrowth and ecology in Western

countries, while it is the holycolour of the prophet in theIslamic world, and should notbe used in Arabic countries.Developers and localisers need,this is the message, a culturaldictionary mapping colours,symbols, icons, hand signals andsound clips between differentcultures.

The less obvious underlyingassumption of this approach isthat the house itself, its layoutand structure can be reused (andreuse is what business, and local-isation, is all about). In otherwords, no matter where in theworld you live, computers areubiquitous; the way you workand collaborate with others andyour approach to problem solv-ing are assumed to be the sameas that of the developers of theoriginal product or service.

Indian researchers taking partin a recent European Unionfunded Europe-Asia Localisa-tion Conference in Bangalore,co-ordinated by Professor PatHall of the Open University(UK), made clear that theseassumptions should not be madewithout a consideration of theunderlying, deeper cultural dif-ferences between western andeastern cultures and the socio-economic differences betweendeveloped and less-developedcountries.

They demonstrated that thereare fundamental differences inthe approach to the use of com-puters and computer applica-tions between their own cultureand that of the western, devel-oped world. Having analysedthese differences they came tothe conclusion that the individ-ualistic approach to problemsolving and computing assumedby devices and applications pro-duced in the west does not cater

adequately for the requirementsof the population in their owncountry.

They came up with the ideaof the Simputer, an affordablehardware device that can easilybe used by communities inremote villages to store andaccess data essential to individ-ual traders – who might not nec-essarily know how to write orhow to use a keyboard. Proto-

types of the Simputer are avail-able and are currently beingtested. (http://www.simputer.org)

Cultural adaptation of digi-tal content has to go far beyondthe use of different colours.Using a cultural dictionary tofind the right colour for the rightcountry merely glosses over thesurface. Western developers havemuch to learn from their Indiancolleagues. ■

Cultural adaptation – just paint the house,but use different colours?

The LRC is setting up an inter-nal register of localisationexperts. The aim of this regis-ter is to allow the LRC to callfrom time to time on theseexperts to assist it with itsprojects.These include, but will not belimited to:● Review of articles submittedfor publication in Localisation

Central● Design and review of coursematerial● Delivery of localisationtraining coursesTo be included in the Register,please fill in the applicationform on the LRC’s web page:http://lrc.csis.ul.ie/Experts/Application.htm

The LRC register of localisation experts

Meeting Om Vikas from the Ministry of Information Technology of India

JUNE 2002 LOCALISATION.central 11LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION.central JUNE 200210 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Built on top of standards like

SOAP and XML, web services

offer the opportunity for truly

distributed computing. The

localisation industry can use web

services to create an infrastructure

that will lead to greater

interoperability and shorter

turnaround times. BILL LOOBY

explores the possibilities.

OKAY, unless you’re a webdeveloper, you may havemissed the advent of thistechnology initiative, butwhether you’re aware of it or

not, the chances are that you’ll be using webservices in the near future, if in fact, you’renot already using them. So what’s the bigdeal about web services?

Put simply, web services allow comput-ers to talk to each other.

Well that’s earth-shatteringly original!Weren’t they doing that already?

Yes, but this allows them to talk acrossthe internet!

Brilliant! Ever heard of browsers?Well yes, but essentially they only allow

human readers to understand the informa-tion that’s received. The browser cares littlewhether it’s displaying a news item or yourbank account details. Web services allowapplications on a computer to talk to appli-cations on another computer!

Nice try, but hasn’t this ground been cov-ered by things like CORBA? And RMI, andDCOM etc?

Yes, but these systems were all closed insome way. DCOM needs Windows; RMIneeds Java; CORBA needs compatibleORBs. Web services care nothing about theplatform or programming language. They’reso open that once someone publishes a ser-vice definition, anyone can write a compat-ible client that can talk to it. (In fact, if youwere feeling masochistic, you could evenwrite requests using a simple text editor!)

How about Microsoft’s .NET?The .NET framework includes web ser-

vices as an integral part of web solutions,

and in fact IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sunand just about every major software ven-dor has fully bought into the web servicesinitiative.

Ok, but why would anyone want tobother publishing a “service definition”?

Say you’ve got a web-based inventoryapplication. Publish the service definition,and anyone (whom you allow) can access itin his or her application, regardless of theplatform, without having to discuss thedetails with you.

Except that they’ll all have to ask me forthis service definition and what it’s supposedto do, thereby interrupting my current, vital,but underrated (and of course underpaid!)task.

Not at all — you can choose to publishthis service, and a description, to a UDDIregistry!

Just what the world needs — anotheracronym!

UDDI stands for Universal DescriptionDiscovery and Integration, but you can justcall it a web services directory. In fact, if youuse the public UDDI registry (sorry, web ser-vices directory), it’s like a global yellow-pages, and anyone can write a clientapplication that talks to your service, as longas you choose to let that person in.

Fine, but what does the client get out ofthis?

Two things. Firstly, he or she gets to talkto your application without needing con-sultancy from you (and as development toolsappear that can create the client code auto-matically, this is getting ever easier). If forexample you have a web-based purchasingservice, a client can automate all purchaseswithout your IT guys even getting in touchwith each other.

And secondly?

You can publish the service definition asa “standard” (generally done by a standardsbody), so that the client can use the sameapplication to talk to any service that sup-ports this standard (for example, compar-ing prices from various services). So anynumber of clients can communicate mean-ingful information with any number of ser-vices.

Web services — why us?As interesting as all this may be (it is,

really!), it still raises the question of what onearth it has got to do with the localisationindustry? Isn’t this a web developer issue?It’s not as if we will ever need to localise webservices, or use them to help with localisa-tion?

As far as localising web services is con-cerned that’s largely true. Web services, asthey’re based on XML, are potentiallyalready globalisation-friendly, and the trans-latable content is no different from thatalready requiring translation as part of anyweb application. In fact, the increased struc-ture surrounding information used in webservices may make the task of localisationconsiderably easier for those tooled up todeal with it.

However, that brings us to the issue ofusing web services as an aid to the localisa-tion industry. Two of the defining charac-teristics of web-based information areincreased volumes and the high rate ofchange. As the localisation industry strug-gles to keep up with the huge flow of data,and shorter turnaround times, a key com-ponent of handling localisation will begreater automation. Although great strideshave been made with individual pieces ofthe puzzle (for example, content extraction,translation memory, previewing, projectmanagement), these pieces often tend to actin isolation. Web services can be the gluethat helps bind these pieces together, stream-lining the whole process.

What also quickly becomes apparent, isthat any such process could be applicable tocontent regardless of its source. In this wayweb services could provide the future infra-structure for the localisation industry.

The utopian web service model forlocalisation

To give you some idea of exactly howweb services could be used to implement anend-to-end translation process, maximisingautomation, Figure 1 (below left) shows anexample of one such potential process andthe web services involved.

Loosely described, a project manager usesa workflow service to configure the piecesinvolved in translation, each of which isavailable as a service. They can use a changedetection service to decide what needs to betranslated, a segment creating service to parsethe information (for example, extracting textfrom Word docs or .PDF files), and a num-ber of translation vendor services for trans-lation memory, machine translation andfinally human translation (or perhaps a sin-gle service for all three!). A translation ven-dor can, in turn, make a service availablefor translators to download and uploadtranslations.

Each service could be local (if you havethe technology) or have obtained it over theinternet (where the service provider wouldno doubt charge you). The key benefits ofthis system are:

■ Only two people are involved in theentire process, the translator and the pro-ject manager.

■ The project manager is only heavilyinvolved at the start for configuration pur-poses. After that, the process is automated,and the project manager need concern him-self or herself only with monitoring andexceptions.

■ Each service used can be implementedinternally, or an external service can be usedif appropriate/available.

■ If there are multiple providers of eachservice, you can even shop around.

■ This process maximises automation andso shortens turnaround times.

Utopian model: workflow serviceA workflow service could allow a user to

route translation requirements through var-ious services as appropriate. Take, for exam-ple, a large international corporation. It maymodify its internal content management sys-tem to create an appropriate translationworkflow for any new site. This workflowservice may be offered by an internal glob-alisation group who will monitor as required(and implement clients for all the otherrelated services), or the corporation maychoose to outsource the entire process to avendor that provides this service.

A separate initiative exists for standard-ising the definition of this very system. It’scalled WSFL (Web Services Flow Language).(A relevant link is included below if you wishto find out more.)

Utopian model: change detection service

This service can be configured by sub-mitting a source site for monitoring (an ftp

site or a database for whatever the servicedeclares support). On a scheduled basis (orvia a return service), it can return a completelist of modified content, which by implica-tion (pending configurable selection crite-ria) is the list of required translations.

Utopian model: XLIFF segmentationservice

XLIFF is an emerging XML based stan-dard for localisation interchange. It allowsthe storage of source and translated contentin a standard translatable way regardless ofthe original content type (XML, Word, Prop-erty files etc.) An XLIFF segmentation ser-vice could understand a wide variety ofdocument formats, and could convert themto or from XLIFF. Once in XLIFF, any trans-lation tool or service that understands XLIFFcan work on the content. This service couldalso be implemented internally, where a com-pany has several XML formats in use(becoming commonplace for web applica-tions), each of which has its own translationrequirements.

Utopian model: translation vendor webservice (TV-WS)

Obviously, one of the most useful webservices that could be offered in the field oflocalisation is a translation vendor service.Several translation vendors already allowsubmission of jobs online. Making this avail-able as a web service would mean that thesubmission of jobs could be automated orincluded in any client website. For example,a content management system could offer a“Send for translation” button that submitsany content for translation to a company’spreferred translation vendor, or a “Costtranslation” button that would query sev-eral translation vendors for quotes.

In the diagram above, this service appearsthree times because it should be general

enough to deal with different types of trans-lations. If XLIFF is used to transport thecontent, it becomes reasonably easy to sub-mit to one service for applying translationmemory, another for machine translationoptions and finally (if still required) to ahuman translation service. Any individualtranslation vendor can choose to supportone or more of these services.

Utopian model: translator access service

As a translation vendor typically uses anumber of translators, who may or may notwork in-house, it would be useful for trans-lators to avail of a web service to accessavailable translation jobs. If this service werestandardised, translation tools could be made“translator access service” aware, so thatjobs could be queried, downloaded anduploaded from within a given translationenvironment.

Utopian model: the rest … In all this, some of the details of the trans-

lation process have not been explicitlyaddressed for differing reasons.

■ Data access — this is assumed to beknown as part of the workflow process andspecified as part of the site submission to thechange detection service. The type of datathat can be dealt with could well be a dif-ferentiator for providers of this service.

■ Review approval — this is assumed tobe either part of the workflow process orthe translation vendor’s internal process (orinitially both).

■ Translation delivery and reinsertion —again, it is assumed the workflow processknows enough to enable this. (There couldpossibly be another service offering herehowever.)

■ Accounting and billing — although weContinued on next page

Translation vendor webservices — the future oflocalisation?

How do web services work?Rather than bore you with the gory details (a guaranteed cure for insomnia), here’s a quicklist of the pieces of technology used in producing and using a web service. If you want moredetails, you can use any of the links at the end of this article.

The service■ Someone, somewhere writes an application (it’s really that general).■ That person exposes an interface to this application.■ He or she makes this interface available over the web using SOAP (Simple Objects AccessProtocol).■ The details of this interface are presented in a .WSDL (Web Services Definition Language) file.■ This .WSDL file is published to the UDDI business registry.

The client■ A search is done on the UDDI registry for an appropriate service■ The .WSDL file is found, defining the SOAP interface.■ A client is written to this interface in the developer’s programming language of choice.■ The client is run.In fact there are generally fewer steps because most application development systems nowautomate the generation of .WSDL files, and the creation of interfaces from them. So if youhave a web application, you may be just two small steps away from having a web service.

Figure 1

JUNE 2002 LOCALISATION.central 13LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION.central JUNE 200212 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Continued from previous page

need to supply and respond to quotes in thissystem, accounting and billing are generalenough processes that they should be han-dled separately.

TV-WS in more detailThis brings us to the specific localisation

service that I’d like to see standardised. It’sfairly apparent from the utopian descrip-tions above that the web service most imme-diately useful, is the translation vendor webservice. At its simplest, it’s a service to allowthe automatic submission of translatablecontent to a web vendor. Essentially, it’s thenext step in automating job submissions:

■ Email submission — generally requireshuman interaction both to submit and to bereceived by the vendor.

■ Website based submission — receipt isautomated, but a user with a browser stillneeds to submit.

■ Web service-based submission — sub-mission and receipt can both be automated.

As an interface, it is equally applicable tohuman translation, machine translation andtranslation memory, in the sense that itinvolves submitting a file (or files) for trans-lation. Obviously the interoperability of thesedepends on the formats used to present andretrieve the translations. However, if XLIFFis used to submit or retrieve the files, itshould be possible to integrate themsmoothly.

At this stage, the model described in Fig-ure 2 (above). may seem familiar to somereaders. In fact, there have already been sev-eral application-specific approaches similarto this in which a translation vendor wouldwrite both the client and the service portionof the system. There were several problemswith this approach however. Generally, onlya single client is supported and a single trans-lation vendor (no shopping around). It’sworth doing only for very large customers,and the customer is tied into this translationvendor and into this process (generally a sin-gle process was assumed).

The key to using web services is the open-ness of the approach. Indeed, once the ser-

vice is published, anyone can write a client,a client can be written for any process, andthis client can talk to any number of ven-dors who support the service.

The details of this service are still verymuch at the high-level discussion stage (seesection “Where is this service definitiongoing … ” for how to contribute). However,here’s some of the basic functionality thatyou might expect:

Query support — if you’re going to dobusiness with someone over web services,you’ll need to know what that firm can pro-vide. This could include a list of languagepairs and possibly some areas of expertise.It might also include the technologies thecompany uses (for example, can it localisea .gif?), and what kind of status (see below)can be queried.

Get quote — based on a submitted wordcount (or file) and possibly including useridentification so that corporate or volumerates can be offered, a total cost can bereturned.

Submit job — initiate translation. At thisstage a job ID should be available so that itsstatus can be queried.

Review job status — begun/percentagecomplete/completed/reviewed. This maydepend on the specific vendor. It may be pos-sible to retrieve an entire HTML page fordescribing the status of a job.

Get translation — once the translation iscomplete, it obviously needs to be possibleto download the completed translation.

Where is this service definition going?Now in its infancy, the effort to produce

a standard, from the general requirementsfor a translation vendor web service, is goingto be managed by the LRC. If you’d like tocontribute to or review this effort, pleasecontact Reinhard Schäler at the LRC (reinhard.schaler@ul.ie).

Who needs to know?■ Translation vendors, especially if you

allow, or intend to allow, internet-based jobsubmissions

■ Localisation technology providers, espe-cially if this technology provides for the sub-

mission or receipt of translation jobs.■ Content managers, if you ever want to

include localisation in your content work-flow system.

■ General localisation customers, if youever want to automate your process.

Useful linksWeb services at IBM:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworksIBM’s developer homepage

http://www.ibm.com/alphaworks sourcefor emerging technologies from IBM

http://www.ibm.com/webservices for doc-umentation, toolkits, discussion

http://www.ibm.com/services/uddi forinformation about UDDI.

More general web service information:http://www.uddi.org/ official UDDI

initiative sitehttp://www.w3c.org/ contains several

documents about web serviceshttp://www.webservices.org/ indepen-

dent, free membership, white papers, dis-cussion area

Other useful links:http://www.lrc.csis.ul.ie - LRC website -

but you probably know this one!http://www.oasis-open.org/commit-

tees/xliff - XLIFF site on OASIS

Bill Looby is a software archi-tect in the IBM web globali-sation technologies group. Hehas been working on global-isation technologies for morethan 10 years, producinglocalisation tools, technology

components and multilingual architecturesfor IBM products. Bill can be contacted at bill_looby@ie.ibm.com

GlossarySOAP — Simple Object Access Protocol. Allowsapplications to ‘call’ each other over the inter-net. Based on XML.UDDI — Universal Description Discovery andIntegration. A web-based distributed directorythat allows businesses to list, and describethemselves and (optionally) their web serviceofferingsWSDL — Web Service Definition Language.Used to define the interface (generally SOAP)that a web service allows/uses.WSFL — Web Services Flow Language. Used todescribe business processes as compositionsof web services.XLIFF — XML Localisation Interchange FileFormat. A format for submitting localisable con-tent in a standard way. It can also includetranslation suggestions and glossary informa-tion.XML — eXtensible Markup Language. A subsetof SGML designed especially for web docu-ments. It allows designers to ‘create’ their ownlanguage.

Figure 2

PREPARATION for the 2003 Spe-cial Olympics is now well underway, with the Irish organisingcommittee working intensivelyon every element of the games.

One of the most important components inthe preparation and duration of the gameswill be the translation requirements.

The tool that will supply the majority ofthis translation service will be the 2003 Special Olympics website at www.2003specialolympics.com. The committee’sambitious plans for the website have beenrealised with the help of Berlitz GlobalNETwith their donation of €1,000,000 worth oftheir services.

The 2003 Special Olympics website willbe a multilingual site available in 10 lan-guages. Some of the pages, such as thosewith information about the host townsaround Ireland and the general informationpages, will have few changes except theiravailability in all 10 languages.

Other pages with press releases, infor-mation on the official events and the resultswill need to be changed rapidly. Being ableto update these dynamic pages is a signifi-cant challenge. The multilingual nature ofthe website adds greatly to that complexity.This can only be achieved with a wellthought out process and innovative tech-nology.

BerlitzIT, the online translation servicefrom Berlitz GlobalNET, is at the centre ofthis innovative technology. It is being usedwith a content management application created by Berlitz GlobalNET and XLIFF,

an XML standard for the interchange oflocalisable files. The team at the SpecialOlympics might have a new press releasethat needs to be translated and put on thesite immediately. To do this, they go to anadministration site, write up the press releaseand select which language they would likethe press release translated into. The pressrelease is then posted to the English site andan XLIFF file is created and sent to BerlitzITwhere its translation is organised and com-pleted. After translation, the file is returnedto the Special Olympics and posted auto-matically.

Here is a more detailed view of the stepsinvolved in this process (See figure 1):

Step 1: Creating the contentOn the administration site, the Special

Olympics team can choose what section ofthe site they would like to add content to.The template changes depending on the sec-tion of the site being added to.

For example, some sections allow linksto other pages and include graphics, whileothers do not. All the desired fields are filledin and a button is pressed to preview thepage. On selecting this they will be able tosee what they have entered as a HTML page.If the page needs correction, selecting thereview button will bring them back to theprevious window where the content can beedited.

Step 2: Posting to the site and creat-ing XLIFF files

When they are happy with the system (Seefigure 2), they will postthe file to the 2003 Spe-cial Olympics website.An XLIFF file will alsobe created for each lan-guage that has beenselected, and this will besent to BerlitzIT.

The XLIFF file has anelement called <trans-unit> where the sourceand target text is stored.

The source represents the original text andthe target is the translation of this text.

Step 3: Translation of the files throughBerlitzIT.

On receiving the file at BerlitzIT, a trans-lator is allocated to it and the file is sent tohim or her. The translator will use a locali-sation tool to edit the file. When the file isfully translated, it is returned to BerlitzITand goes back from there to the SpecialOlympics.

Step 4: Translated files posted tolocalised websites.

The file is then uploaded to the SpecialOlympics website. Data contained in the fileallows the content management system torecognise which language version of thewebsite should be updated. The target con-tent is then added to the corresponding sec-tion of the translated website.

Peter Reynolds is Manager of the Devel-opment Team at Berlitz GlobalNET. Hejoined the company six years ago and nowmanages the development team in its Euro-pean Headquarters in Dublin.This team hasdeveloped BerlitzIT, and business and pro-duction tools for the company. Recentlythere has been an emphasis on internet basedtools.

Pe t e r c a n b e r e a ch e d a t Pe t e r.Reynolds@Berlitz.ie

Case Study:Translation ServicesFor the first time ever, the 2003

Special Olympics World Games

will take place outside the United

States, and the chosen location is

Dublin. PETER REYNOLDS

reports.

TechnologiesContent Management solutionThe Content Management solutionwas built by Berlitz GlobalNET for theSpecial Olympics. It consists of anSQL Server database which has beenoptimised to handle Unicode and anadministration website from which theSpecial Olympics website can be man-aged.XLIFF — XLIFF is a new XML industrystandard for localisation. It wasdesigned for the interchange of filesbetween software publishers andlocalisation vendors.www.BerlitzIT.com — BerlitzIT is anonline translation service that BerlitzGlobalNET has been running for thelast three years. At the heart ofBerlitzIT is a production managementengine and a global vendor database.

Figure 1

Figure 2

JUNE 2002 LOCALISATION.central 15LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION.central JUNE 200214 LOCALISATION FOCUS

THE GROWINGresistance to glob-alisation is beingdriven by peoplew h o a r e c o n -

cerned about the perceived all-invasive influence of multi-national conglomerates on ourlives. One particular area ofconcern is the nature and effectof changes in the field of com-munications. Many believe therehas been an insidious “inva-sion” by Information Age tech-nology on our everyday lives.

Opponents of recent techno-logical developments have anew-age nightmare in whichsociety has been transformedinto a homogeneous, global,digital community by the inva-sive nature of global communi-cations. In this scenario theglobal community is under thecontrol and influence of a hand-ful of huge, US-dominatedTransnational Conglomerates(TNCs). For the opponents ofglobalisation, this nightmare isfast becoming reality. Innova-tion and convergence in busi-ness and technology is its engine.The development of mono-culturalism and consumerism isits objective.

In 1998, in an official Euro-pean Union report, Frans deBruine, a Director with theEuropean Commission, ex-pressed the concern withinEurope over the growing nega-tive influence of the informationrevolution:

“[Europe’s] response to thechallenges of the informationage must recognise the needs ofdifferent cultures and commu-nities. The information societyshould be much more than justan economic community. Itshould be a compassionate com-munity concerned with the well-being of society as a whole.”

The communications worldof today is witnessing tremen-dous technological convergence,business innovation, deregula-tion, privatisation and globallyintegrated economies. However,

doe s th i s t r end make i tinevitable that there will be adominance of one culture overweaker cultures? Is globalisa-tion a dynamic that is forcinglocal and national governmentsto cede control of the media totransnational conglomerates? Isa stable and cohesive Europe,for example, under threat fromthese TNCs, which are seen asthe engine of the InformationSociety — an engine that is notsensitive to the needs that arisefrom Europe’s pluralistic, multi-cultural and multilingual envi-ronment? Are we witnessing thebirth of a “fortress Europe”mentality intent on protectingitself from what it perceives tobe the invasion of a mono-cultural, US-dominated, con-glomerate-driven, cultural bat-tering ram?

What’s more, if the EU feelshelpless, how much moreuneasy must the less developedregions of the world feel?Indeed, is Europe’s reaction aslikely to succeed as King Canutein holding back the tide?

For some, it is this modernday, insidious form of colonial-ism — a combination of pow-erful corporate conglomerates,the web and other powerfultechnologies — that has madeMarshall McLuhan’s metaphor-ical “global village” into acyber-space reality. It has even

managed to shorten consider-ably the time needed to traversethe main street of that global vil-lage, from hours to nano-sec-onds. However, is this presentdebate about globalisation andtransnational media dominancea resurgence of the good olddays of the neo-Marxist debateon cultural imperialism of the1960s and 1970s? Is the inter-net really the 21st centuryequivalent of satellites, poisedto transmit a mono-cultural, US-centric message to all corners ofthe globe? Is the cultural coloni-sation of Europe, and other lessdeveloped regions, being trans-mitted along telephone lines —copper and fibre optic? Havetanks and warships beenreplaced by binary code andXML?

Some analysts argue thatdependence on US communica-tions and technological exper-tise, coupled with a demand forUS produced media products,has invited an “electronic inva-sion” of many countries. Theinternet, they say, is becominga centrally controlled, suprana-tional marketing system thatthreatens to undermine tradi-tional cultures and languagespromoting consumerism as asupreme value. If you are look-ing for proof, they argue, clickon any website today and sitback and wait for the market-

ing gimmicks to make theirappearance. Open your Hotmailaccount and see how manyspam mails you have from sell-ers, mostly American.

Not everyone sees the inter-net and technological conver-gence as a threat to indigenousculture, language and control.Bill Gates, for one, is an expo-nent of the theory that the inter-net will be the harbinger of a“robust and direct democracy”and “friction free capitalism”.In the utopian vision of Gates,the “supranational” freeway willencourage a free flow of infor-mation and opinions. Thus, eventhe humblest person with accessto a PC and telephone line willhave access to this freeway. Oth-ers are dismissive of such theory,arguing instead that the resultof this “supranational” freewaywill be an increasing socialinequality worldwide as a fewinstitutions or even nations areable to resist powerful, market-driven, US-owned transnationalconglomerates.

Other commentators arguethat changes in technology andbusiness will have the sameimpact as the Industrial Revo-lution. This new technologicalrevolution will reshape globalsociety leading to new economicforms, a new social context andan erosion of indigenous lan-guages.

Convergence in technologicalproducts — with the comingtogether of telephony, comput-ers, multimedia functionality andwireless — is mirrored in a con-solidation of mega-media cor-porations into giant, global“online leviathans”. At the dawnof the 21st century, the numberof important global media play-ers is shrinking significantly.Today six transnational con-glomerates dominate the worldmedia market. All but one isAmerican. All are Western.

This new media beast willshape the information contentand entertainment choices of mil-lions of people all over the globe.Add to this equation the potentfactor of a growing number ofinternet users. Because of this,ideas that used to take genera-tions to travel from one cultureto another can now travel innano-seconds and can readilyreach a global audience. What isperhaps more ominous is thatthose ideas and messages are now

being formulated and dissemi-nated by a handful of powerfulcorporations. They are invariablytransmitted in English. The devel-opment of wireless technologyand WAP capability have madethe boundaries even greyer. Themega-merging of companies likeAOL and Time-Warner to formworld-dominating conglomerateswill add to the power of the inter-net. The convergence of televi-sion, film, radio, publishing andcomputing to one accessiblemedium has been dubbed by onecommentator “the internet cen-tury”. In the not too distantfuture the internet will allow usto watch, read, or listen to any-thing, anywhere at any time. Andthe chances are that what wewatch, read or listen to will beprimarily in English.

The internet has emergedas the fastest growing, mostpotent means of communica-tions. It respects no boundaries,languages or cultural sensitivi-ties. Today 80% of all websitesare in English — primarily theNorth American flavour of thatlanguage. This fact seems to sup-port what one commentatorcalls “ … the colonisation of thecommunications space”. Gov-ernments — those who actuallycare — are powerless to protecttheir indigenous cultures againstthis electronic colonisation. Theyare powerless to protect theirlanguage and culture from a tideof US-dominated programmesand web content with their con-comitant consumerist view ofthe world.

If in war the victor writes thehistory, so also in this war of cul-tural domination the victor willbe whoever controls the con-glomerate armies and fibre-opticbattlefield. In today’s commu-nications age the predominantfeature is a growing centralityof control, coupled with a con-vergence of technology. Thesetwo factors are creating an impe-tus that could conceivably leadto a global domination of thecommunications airways andfibre-optic channels by a fewconglomerates.

The internet has brokenthrough all boundaries, and theadvent of fibre optic has given theconglomerates the means by whichthey can disseminate their view ofthe world on a global scale, atnano-speed and in English.

If people doubt that the

alliance of commerce and com-munications can kill a language,they need only look at whathappened in Ireland. Englishflourished in Ireland chieflybecause it was the language ofcommerce and communication.If a person wanted to “better”himself, he needed to adapt tothe demands of commerce andlearn English. As a result, Eng-lish became the dominant lan-guage, reducing Irish speakersto the status of an endangeredspecies. Today UNESCO isactively involved in trying toensure this does not happen tocountless other languages acrossthe globe. They are sponsors ofprogrammes that encourage theproduction, safeguarding and

dissemination of diversified con-tents in the media and globalinformation networks. Thequestion is: who’s listening tothem?

And what of Europe: what isit doing to safeguard its lan-guages? Are the politicians inBrussels doing enough to protectthe languages of Europe? Shouldthey be more active in demand-ing equality of language contenton websites, digital television andcinema? Should they make itobligatory to have software prod-ucts available in native languages?

Why not introduce a pro-gramme that designates certainsites and software products as“European friendly” and encour-age the citizens of Europe toaccess such sites to buy products?Force the authors of digital con-tent media to respect the lan-guages and cultures of their

audience. Hit them where it hurts— in the pocket.

Alternatively, or in tandem,why doesn’t the EU providegrants to North American com-panies to localise their websitesor software programmes pro-vided those grants are spent withEuropean localisation compa-nies? The EU already providesgrants — through its e-contentprogramme — to European com-panies to encourage the de-velopment of EU friendly sitesand web content. However, thereality is that much of the e-content Europeans avail of isgenerated in the US! By provid-ing grants to the authors of thiscontent, the EU will increase theamount of content localised andprovide a boost to the localisa-tion industry in Europe at thesame time.

Finally, is this all relevant toour industry? I would argue thatit certainly is. If English contin-ues to dominate as the languageo f commun i ca t i on s ande-commerce, will it not in-evitably erode the standing ofother languages? If that happens,why bother localising a prod-uct? Many localisation man-agers will tell you that it’salready an uphill task trying toconvince their North Ameri-can parent companies to see

internationalisation and locali-sation as essential parts of theproduction and marketingprocess.

The basis of localisation is therecognition of the diversity andrichness of language. It is alsothe recognition of the importantpart language plays in our cul-ture. Language is the corner-stone of any culture. Chip awayat that cornerstone and youundermine the foundation ofthat culture.

We in localisation should beconcerned with this trend awayfrom native language content. Ifnot, in 20 years from now, wemay be remembering the goodold days when some softwarecompanies “quaintly” translatedtheir products into non-Englishlanguages? We may be wellrecalling these as the halcyondays of our industry. Is this scenario far-fetched? Maybe, butonly the future will tell for sure.

■Aidan Collins is Operations

Manager with Tektrans. He canbe reached at aco@tektrans.com

The sight of anti-

globalisation protesters

smashing up the banks

and fast food

restaurants of Barcelona

recently is only the latest

in a long line of such

riotous outbreaks. They

are the more militant

manifestation of a

growing anti-

globalisation movement

which has supporters in

every country in the

world. AIDAN

COLLINS considers the

implications.

Are the communications leviathansdevouring cultures and languages?

Just when you thought it was safe to dive into the internet: many criticssee the internet and its attendant technology as the leviathan vehicle forAmerican cultural domination.

The power of the new media infor-mation technologies invites com-parisons with Thomas Hobbes’nightmare morality tale Leviathan.

Aidan Collins

JUNE 2002 SUMMER.school 17LOCALISATION FOCUSSUMMER.school JUNE 200216 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Second International LRC Localisation Summer School Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS)University of Limerick

PRESENTERSFlorian Sachse, John Malone, LisaDaly, Padraig Bracken, Patrick O'Sul-livan, Ray Loughran, ReinhardSchäler, Susanne Maier, Tom Con-nolly, Tony O'Dowd, Yves Savourel

Foundation Course in Software Localisation17-18 June 2002

Advanced Course in Software Localisation19-20 June 2002

Second announcement (Please note that this programme might be subject to change.)

REGISTRATIONFor programme updates, registration form and further details of the 2nd International LRCLocalisation Summer School, please consult the LRC website http://lrc.csis.ul.ie.

FEESFoundation course: €600Advanced course: €60010% discount if you book more than one course (per dele-gate).The LRC cannot refund booking fees but will accept substi-tutes for confirmed delegates, provided it receives confir-mation 2 working days before the event. The LRC will keepa limited number of places for lecturers and students ofrecognised third level institutions. Fees include refreshments,buffet lunch, and course material.

Supported by

The LRC will hold its Second International Localisation Summer School this year. The courseswill be delivered by localisation professionals in thestate-of-the-art facilities of the Department of Computer Science at the University ofLimerick, home of the LRC.

HANDS-ONAll courses will be delivered, where appropriate, in designatedcomputer laboratories.They are designed to provide hands-onexperience to participants, will cover the latest versions oftools and technologies and practical exercises. Some plenarysessions will be held in a purpose built lecture theatre.

Course presenters: Tom Connolly (Consultant), Pat O’Sullivan (IBM), LisaDaly (Oracle), Florian Sachse (PASS Engineering), Padraig Bracken (Con-sultant), Susanne Maier (IBM)This course is aimed at people with little or no prior knowledge of softwarelocalisation. It will provide an introduction to the four main areas of locali-sation and an introduction to internationalisation issues:

(1) Management of the Software Localisation Process(2) Localisation Document Engineering and Translation(3) Introduction to Internationalisation(4) Localisation Engineering(5) Localisation QA and Testing.

Foundation Course in Software Localisation17-18 June 2002

Advanced Course in Software Localisation19-20 June 2002

All course modules will be delivered using lecture-like sessions and hands-on practical exercises.

Tuesday, 18 June 2002

Monday, 17 June 2002 Wednesday, 19 June 2002

17 – 20 June 2002

Course presenters: Tony O’Dowd (Alchemy), Padraig Bracken (Consultant), RayLoughran (IBM) and John Malone (Archetypon)

Module 1 of this course will focus on the business aspects of localisation.Session 1 will discuss the problem of project management in global teamsand focus on the business process used, i.e. integrated product development.This approach focuses on the integration of the development process intoother parts of the business: sales and marketing, manufacturing, support andlong term planning.Session 2 will provide answers to the question of the unequal partnershipoften encountered in the localisation business, where multinational clientsdominate the business relationship with their much smaller vendors. David vsGoliath: how can small localisation companies service multinational pub-lishers?

Module 2 of this course will focus on the management of large, multi-lan-guage projects and emerging technologies.Session 1 will offer solutions to the technology question in the context ofmulti-language projects: how can project updates be effectively filtered throughto all language versions? How can version control be applied most efficiently?How are multiple-language projects supported by engineering and translationtools?Session 2 will, for the first time, address the most significant technologychange that will impact the LSP vendor base, the emergence of a new para-digm in product development. This new technology is Microsoft .NET. It willfundamentally change the localisation process as we know it today and it willchallenge each and every LSP worldwide.This technology change is unprece-dented in an industry that has just learnt how to localise Win32 applicationsefficiently. Microsoft are now using XML as one of their core technologies forapplication development.

MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX, MULTIPLE-LANGUAGE PROJECTS

This course is aimed at localisation professionals who would like to learn about new trends and technologies and exchange views with their peers. There willbe four half-day sessions with a focus on business and management aspects of complex, multiple-language localisation projects, as well as on new and emerg-ing technologies and standards.

08:30 Registration

08:45 Welcome and opening

09:00 Module 1, session 1Management of the Software Localisation Process I – setting upa localisation team, structuring the organisation, setting up theprocessesTom Connolly

10:30 Break

11:00 Module 1, session 2Management of the Software Localisation Process II – client/ven-dor relationship, workflow vs project managementTom Connolly

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Module 2Internationalisation – typical programming errors, character sets,tools and workflowsFlorian Sachse

15:30 Break

16:00 Module 3Localisation Document Engineering and Translation II – prepar-ing documents for translation, repetition processing, and termi-nology databasesSusanne Maier

17:30 Close

18:30 Course Dinner (please register)

08:45 Welcome and opening

09:00 Module 4, session 1Localisation Engineering I – Introduction and conceptsPat O’Sullivan

10:30 Break

11:00 Module 4, session 2Localisation Engineering II – Tools and technologiesLisa Daly

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Module 5, session 1Localisation QA and Testing I – Introduction and conceptsPadraig Bracken

15:30 Break

16:00 Module 5, session 2Localisation QA and Testing II – Tools and technologiesPadraig Bracken

17:30 Close

08:30 Registration

08:45 Welcome and opening09:00 Module 1, session 1

Project Management in global teamsRay Loughran

10:30 Break

11:00 Module 1, session 2David vs Goliath – small localisation companies servicing multinational publishersJohn Malone

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Module 2, session 1Localising .NET applicationsTony O’Dowd

15:30 Break

16:00 Module 2, session 2Leveraging QA knowledge across language versionsPadraig Bracken

17:30 Close

18:30 Course Dinner (please register)

JUNE 2002 LOCALISATION.central 19LOCALISATION FOCUS 19

Localisation toolsdevelopmentThis article is a summary of FELICIANO

DONOSO’s submission for the LRC Best Thesis

Award 2001. Feliciano’s fourth year project achieved

a special mention by the jury.

WEB-BASED applications are becoming a keyissue in the localisation industry. At MendezIreland (now Bowne Global Solutions Ireland)we started the development of a tool (ResTrans)to improve the localisation process of Java

applications. The development of tools specifically for the locali-sation of Java applications is still in its infancy. Our idea was to cre-ate a graphical user interface tool that allows translators access tothe localisable resources, without access to the code syntax.

First of all, an overview of the way a Java application can belocalised depending on the level of internationalisation is required.

A Java application that is not inter-nationalised makes the localisationprocess very difficult. Two options arefeasible at this stage. We can send theentire code files to the translators withinstructions on how to translate theEnglish text inside the source code, orwe can create copies of the sourcecode, extract the strings to be trans-lated into text files and then cut andpaste the translations from the textfiles once we get them back from thetranslator. Neither of these options isefficient. Both will be slow and error

prone. Once the files are translated, they will have to be tested forcompiler errors.

However, a properly internationalised Java application has itslocalisable resource strings separated from the source code. Theseresources are isolated in flat text files, called Properties files (Prop-ertyResourceBundle objects) or in ListResourceBundle objects. Sunprovides a standard paradigm for instantiating and extendingresource bundles.

AdvantagesThe main advantage of ListResourceBundle objects is that they

offer a wider scope than text property files. While in the text prop-erty files only text can be isolated from the source code, the List-

ResourceBundle objects can contain any locale sensitive contextobject, as can be seen in the example above. (For more details aboutinternationalisation of Java applications see: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n).

ResTrans can be thought of as a ListResourceBundle object thattranslators can access. We believe ResTrans can be used to improvethe localisation and translation processes for a fully internation-alised Java application.

■ The ListResourceBundle is sent to the translator. ■ The translator works on the files and returns a new List-

ResourceBundle with the translations applied within.■ The software engineer compiles the translated file with the

source code.■ If no error occurred in the process, a new executable, fully

localised file is created.By denying the translator access to the syntax of the resource

bundle object, we can reduce possible mistakes caused by humanerror. We believe that ResTrans can help improve the localisationprocess, in the following ways.

Firstly, ResTrans is a ResourceBundle editor with a GUI thatallows the translator to access only the strings to be translated. Oneof the main error sources is the possible corruption of the Java fileswhen they are sent to the translators through human error. In Fig-

ure 1 (below) we have dis-played how the translatorwill see a ListResource-Bundle object by usingResTrans. The translatorhas access to the localisablepart of the resource bun-dle, not to the entire sourcesyntax of the resource bun-dle, and can choose thelanguage settings intowhich the resource bundleis being translated.

Secondly, the ResTranssource code is fully internationalised. It would be a contradictionto use hard-coded strings in ResTrans, when ResTrans itself is atool that helps localising java files. ResTrans itself is internation-alised and can be localised into any language for ease of use. Wecan enforce this ease of use in ResTrans by using Swing compo-nents. The main advantage is that Swing components are displayedwith the same Look and Feel independently from the machine beingused. Thus, there is no need to worry about the different ways acomponent will be displayed in a GUI.

Another issue we have to address in localisation is character-encoding schemes. However, few text editors support Unicode text.Many text editors support ASCII or single ISO 8859 character sets.

To deal with this issue, first of all, the appropriate fonts should havebeen installed in the operating system. Then the routines that orig-inally were designed in ResTrans for reading and extracting resourcesfrom the US file should be slightly modified by the language file.These routines should follow the scheme in Figure 2 (above).

When a translator creates a new language file, the resources aredisplayed untranslated.

In fact, the routine that performs this action is exactly the sameas the one used to display the US resources. The translator thenmodifies the resources (possibly using characters that need Unicoderepresentation).

Continued on next page

Case study

Feliciano Donoso

Fig. 1: View of a ListResourceBundle inResTrans

Fig. 2: Scheme for routine modification

public class StatsBundle_ja_JP extends ListResourceBundle {

public Object[][] getContents() {

return contents;

}

private Object[][] contents = {

{ "GDP", new Integer(21300) },

{ "Literacy", new Double(0.99) },

{ "Greetings", "Hello" },

};

}

LOCALISATION.central JUNE 200218 LOCALISATION FOCUS

º

Advanced Course in Software Localisation19-20 June 2002

Thursday 20 June 2002

Course presenter: Yves Savourel

Module 3 will look at XML from the localisation viewpoint: as a format usedmore and more to store translatable material as well as a technology whichlocalisers can take advantage of to improve their processes. The course willprovide an overview of the basic facets of XML and their internationalisationaspects.● It will present guidelines to create XML vocabularies and to author XML doc-

uments with localisation in mind.

● It will provide examples of how to implement some of the various localisa-tion-related advantages XML can offer, such as localisation directives, re-usability, and so forth.

● Translating XML documents and interfaces will be covered by looking at someof the current solutions, addressing some of their implementation issuesand examining how to take advantage of interoperability to create alternateefficient processes when needed.

The course will make use of different localisation-related XML formats, espe-cially XLIFF, and will be illustrated by concrete examples and hands-on exer-cises making use of editors and PCs.

XML AND LOCALISATION

COURSE PRESENTERSPadraig BrackenPadraig Bracken is a localisation consultant with more than 15years experience in the localisation industry. He worked withMicrosoft and Lotus, and was one of the founding directors ofthe localisation service provider VistaTec.padraigb@pobox.com

Tom ConnollyTom Connolly has over 20 years experience in localisation,newproduct introduction, manufacturing engineering and engi-neering services management. For the past two years he hasrun his own consultancy, focussing on business developmentand project management.He is Vice President of the MicrosoftProject Users Group Ireland Chapter and has recently launcheda project management training programme,which is recognisedby TILP (The Institute of Localisation Professionals) as part ofthe CLP certification process for localisation professionals inIreland.Tom was born in Ireland and graduated from UniversityCollege Galway in 1981 having completed a BE (Industrial). Heworked for over 18 years at Apple Computer,mostly in Cork Ire-land and including three long-term assignments in California.He has studied Project Management in MCE, Brussels andtaken Management Training at INSEAD in Fontainebleau,France.He sat APICS examinations in MRP,Production Activity Controland Inventory Management. He is currently studying an MBAin the National University of Ireland in Cork.tom@itacenterprises.com

Lisa DalyGraduated 1999 from University College Cork with a BSc Honsin Computer Studies.Worked for one year in Transware Plc,Dublin, localising and testing computer based training courseswhich were deployed mainly in html.Has worked in Oracle Cor-poration, Dublin, since August 2000 in the Worldwide ProductTranslation Group as a software engineer,with tasks includingengineering vendor translation kits and writing engineeringprocesses for the department.The team Lisa was working withhas just finished localising the latest release of Oracle inter-net Application Server (iAS).lisa.daly@oracle.com

Yves SavourelYves Savourel is a Localisation Solutions Architect with the RWSGroup LLC,at Boulder,Colorado.He has been involved in inter-nationalisation and localisation for more thana decade.Work-ing at developing localisation tools and solutions,he has been

dealing with SGML and XML issues for many years.One of thedevelopers of OpenTag, one of the early XML common extractformat,Yves is also co-technical chair of the Oscar group atLISA, responsible for TMX. He has recently been involved withthe development of XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange FileFormat) and other efforts related to XML and localisation. Heis the author of "XML Internationalisation and Localisation",the definite guide to XML and localisation.yves@opentag.com

Ray LoughranRay has a strong interest in outsourcing in localisation and alsoproject/process management in localisation - these are areashe has responsibility for in Lotus.He has been involved in mov-ing the company from a point where virtually no outsourcingtook place to a point where a very significant part of its workis now outsourced.Ray set up the strategy for the company overthree year ago. He has seen it evolve through every stage dur-ing that time.More recently he has been driving an area referredto in the IBM world as Business Controls. Its focus has beenon how to effectively run projects at a global level in a largemultinational company.Tricky areas like matrix managementand global budget control are some of the key topics that drivethis area. He runs regular workshops in Lotus/IBM and hasbeen a part-time lecturer in the Dublin Institute of Technology,Bolton Street, for over 14 years.He has significant experiencein presenting workshops.Ray_Loughran@ie.ibm.comJohn MaloneJohn Malone is one of the localisation industry’s most experi-enced business experts. Following many years in vendor man-agement with the world’s largest software publisher,he is nowDirector of International Sales and Marketing for the localisa-tion service provider Archetypon S.A. John is also a foundingmember of the Council of The Institute of Localisation Profes-sionals (TILP).JTM@Archetypon.com

Susanne MaierSusanne Maier is Development Manager of Notes 5.x WindowsReleases with IBM Software Group, Lotus Software.susanne_maier@ie.ibm.com

Pat O’SullivanPat O'Sullivan won the LRC Best Thesis Award in 2000 for hisPhD thesis "A Paradigm for Creating Multilingual Interfaces".He previously won this award in 1997 for his M.Sc. thesis "A

Software Test Reduction System For Use In Localisation Envi-ronments". Originally from Cork, Pat completed his ComputerScience degree at Cork's Institute of Technology in 1990. Hecompleted his M.Sc.with University College Dublin's ComputerScience department in 1997 and he has recently submittedhis PhD to the University of Limerick's Computer Science andInformation Systems department.Currently Pat works as a Prin-cipal Engineer with Lotus Development Ireland in their MobileComputing Group.patosullivan@ie.ibm.com

Tony O’DowdTony was Executive Vice President and General Manager of CorelCorporation Limited from October 1995 to November 2000.This organisation was responsible for localising,supporting andmanufacturing all international products for Corel. It was dur-ing this period that Corel adopted a release strategy that requiredall products be released simultaneously.Tony's team success-fully met this challenge and simultaneous release of productsbecame the norm rather than the exception.In 1995 Tony estab-lished a development team that developed the Trinity technol-ogy, that eventually became the Corel CATALYST product.Thisrevolutionised the localisation process for Corel, reducing costand release lead-times while improving product quality and reli-ability. Tony spent three years as a lecturer at Trinity CollegeDublin, teaching Microprocessor Design and Assembly Lan-guage Programming.Aged 34,Tony has a BSC Computer Sci-ence from Trinity College Dublin and is a founder of FIT Ltd., a$20 million government training organisation for the long-termunemployed.Tonyod@alchemysoftware.ie

Florian SachseFlorian Sachse is MD of PASS Engineering, a company whichdevelops software for the healthcare industry and tools for soft-ware localisation.Over ten years experience in developing mis-sion critical multilingual software for the healthcare industrylead to the development of PASSOLO, the PASS SoftwareLocaliser.Together with his development team,Florian is imple-menting an efficient approach to tackle the complex problemsof software localisation.fsachse@pass-engineering.com

08:45 Welcome and opening

09:00 Module 3, session 1:● XML Basics● Character Representation (Encoding, NCRs, character entities,

etc.)10:30 Break

11:00 Module 3, session 2:

● Rendering and Presentation (CSS, XSL, bi-directional text,vertical text, i18n layout, etc.)

● Developing XML Vocabularies and Documents (Planning for easier localisation)

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Module 3, session 3:

● Taking Advantage of XML for Localisation (Exchange formats,true re-use, referencing, databases, single-source, etc.)

15:30 Break

16:00 Module 3, session 4:

● Translating XML Documents (Tools, preparation, translation,post-processing, etc.)

17:30 Close

JUNE 2002 TOOLS.review 21LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION.central JUNE 200220 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Continued from previous page

Another problem that arose in the development of ResTrans was hotkeys. In the source code of ResTrans hotkeys were treated in thefollowing way:

JMenu menu1st = new JMenu ((String)resources.getObject("FileMenu")); menu1st.setMnemonic(((Character) resources.getObject("MnemonicFileMenu")).charValue());

and this is the ResourceBundle object that displays the text:

{"FileMenu", "File"},{"MnemonicFileMenu", new Character('F')}

However, in other resource script standards, a hotkey is repre-sented by using the & character before the hotkey. To allow thetranslator to see the & character before the hotkey, the source codeneeds to be changed.

String aux = new (String)resources.getObject("FileMenu"); Character ampersand = new Character (whereisampersand(aux));JMenu menu1st = new JMenu (removeampersand(aux)); menu1st.setMnemonic (ampersand);

where the function whereisampersand returns the characterthat should have the hotkey and removeampersand removes the& character from the menu option. Following this method, the trans-lator translates the strings including the hotkeys.

Another problem to face in the development of the tool was thecharacter corruption in Java. In the ResourceBundle objects we canfind something similar to the following:

{"test", "This is a \"test\""}

The translator should not be allowed access to the escape char-acters “\” while translating, to avoid a possible corruption of thecode. Therefore, the application makes these transparent to the user.

Finally, the number of resources and the word count are impor-tant in tracking costs and evaluating projects. ResTrans will needto provide its users with this information.

First stageResTrans is at its first stage of development. Future releases may

include some new features that are already in the planning stage. For instance, why do we have to send the files to the translators?

ResTrans has been developed as a JApplet because we wanted toavoid sending the files to the translators via FTP or mail.

Instead, we would have liked the translator to access our filesthrough the web to save time. We started the development of Servletsto build an n-tier-architecture.

Another interesting line of development would be convertingResTrans into a future Translation Memory Tool. As we can seefrom the structure of the ResourceBundle objects, there are no ref-erences to the context in which the translated text is to be under-stood. What are the advantages of adding a third field: that is,changing from a key-value structure like this:

{"MnemonicFileMenu", new Character('F')}

to a key-value-context information structure like this one?

{"MnemonicFileMenu", new Character('F'), "Hotkey for \"File\" -Menu option "}

Firstly, this would increase the quality of the translations. Sec-ondly, the hotkey issue previously explained could be avoided andthirdly, every time a resource was translated the tool could display

a proposed translation by matching not only the term to be trans-lated but also the context information into other ResourceBundleobjects stored on the server.

Another way the tool could be improved would be the follow-ing: Why not create a parser that extracts the strings automaticallyfrom the source code? The idea could follow these steps:

■ Create a copy of the source code and then, following a specificcriterion, tag the resources to be translated.

■ Those tags would be used as the key for the ResourceBundle. ■ The translator would then create the translated version.■ By using the key in the ResourceBundle object, which is exactly

the same key as is in the tagged source, the translated versionwould be created automatically by matching the keys.

This can be summarised in the scheme in figure 3. Such a solu-tion could also be applied for HTML/XML source code usingResourceBundle objects to isolate the translatable strings.

The RestTrans development described in this artilcle was carriedout at Mendez Ireland (now BGS Ireland) at the time of submis-sion for the LRC Best Thesis Award 2001. My special thank goesout to all staff at Mendez, especially to Dr Kieran Arthur, for theirassistance during my degree’s final project. ■

Feliciano Donoso is a Software Engineer with Bowne Global Solu-t i o n s , I r e l a n d . H e c a n b e r e a c h e d a t F e l i c i a n o .Donoso@bowneglobal.ie

Fig. 3: Scheme for parser creation

Best thesis awardThis year’s Best Thesis Award has

been launched. Research work cov-

ered by the call for proposals

should be submitted to the LRC by

31 August 2002. For details visit

http://lrc.csis.ul.ie or contact

LRC@ul.ie

The PASSOLO ApproachPASSOLO’s approach is to pro-vide a very easy-to-use tool,enabling translators, testers,and project managers withoutany programming knowledgeto learn it quickly and in anintuitive way. As its developersput it, learning PASSOLO’sstandard features will never bemore time consuming or moreexpensive than the tool itself.

On the other hand, PAS-SOLO is designed to be highlycustomisable. It lets users adaptit to their own needs by takingadvantage of the flexibility ofthe add-ins concept andmacros. However, some pro-gramming experience is neededfor this.

Standard FeaturesThe following are some of themost interesting standard fea-tures of PASSOLO: integratedWYSIWYG editors (menus canalso be graphically displayed);statistics; glossary management;auto-translation (in conjunc-tion with fuzzy matching); awide range of checks to test forcommon errors; pseudo-trans-lation; update project (especiallyhandy to update the target filesat any stage with new modifi-cations in the source file); align-ment; double-byte languagesand binary files support.

PASSOLO’s Potential PASSOLO’s potential rests ontwo main pillars: the add-insand the macros. They bothenhance and extend the func-tionality of this tool by allow-ing the creation of customisedsolutions for particular locali-sation workflows in differentprojects.

The Add-Ins TechnologyPASSOLO’s add-ins are DLLsimplemented in the applicationin order to expand it with new

functions. Thanks to the add-

ins, it can interact with otherinterfaces. At the moment, theadd-ins available let users inter-change terminology data in dif-ferent formats with STAR andTRADOS translation memorytools by just selecting theImport/Export functions in theFile menu. Another availableadd-in allows to localise appli-cations written in Borland Del-phy/C++ Builder. This way,PASSOLO can adapt to otherapplications used in the localisa-tion workflow. In addition to this, developers canget the PASSOLO interface def-inition from Pass, create theirown add-ins for other tools orworkflows, and add them in theAdd-ins options dialog.

MacrosBy using macros, users can auto-mate repetitive tasks in the local-isation workflow practically inthe same way as when writ-ing/editing (not recording) macrosin Word or Excel. However,instead of MS Visual Basic, SaxBasic language is used in the SaxBasic Engine’s editor integratedin PASSOLO. This is wheremacros are to be written, editedand debugged. (Fortunatelyenough, MS Visual Basic and SaxBasic are almost identical lan-guages).As mentioned before, macros canalso be used to enhance PAS-SOLO’s functionality. For exam-ple, one of the macros that canbe downloaded for free fromPass’ website, allows to scan MSAccess databases containing mul-tilingual content that needs to belocalised. In order to achieve that, a data-base definition file (.tdb) has tobe stored in the same folder asthe actual database. This file mustcontain 5 lines describing the lay-out of the database: the path andthe name of the table, the nameof the fields containing the lan-

PASSOLO 3.5

Fig. 1: PASSOLO’s user interface

Fig. 2: DLL add-ins communicate with PASSOLO through the DLL interface

In this article, Rafael Guzmán briefly describes some of Passolo’s most interesting standard features and focuses hisattention on this localisation tool’s customisable aspects.

Fig. 3: Sax Basic Engine’s editor and debugger integrated in PASSOLO.

guage code, the resource entryids, and the text to be translated.Of course, this file can be con-figured to enable PASSOLO torecognize any other database for-mat.

Once the macro has been setup as the system macro in themacro’s dialogue, the database

will be recognised when creat-ing a new project. Because eachstring in the database is associ-ated to a language ID, users canspecify the language of thestrings to be extracted whenselecting the database as thesource file. Then, by clicking onScan File in the String List menu,

the strings associated with theselected language will beextracted and ready to be trans-lated in PASSOLO.

Each time another applica-tion is to be used in conjunctionwith PASSOLO, a reference tothe object (eg: MS Excel ObjectLibrary, TRADOS Translator’sWorkbench Type Library, XMLSpy Type Library, etc.) needs tobe made in a PASSOLO macroby selecting it in the Referenceoption (Edit menu) of the SaxBasic Engine’s editor.

Regarding other types ofapplications, any of them caninteract with PASSOLO, as longas the programming language ofthe other application allows con-nections to OLE applicationservers. PASSOLO’s Program-mers’ Guide provides detailedinformation on how to programmacros in the Sax Basic Engine’seditor.

Other possible uses of macrosinclude generic text parsing tosupport file formats other than.exe or .dll (such as .ini files,etc.).

Limitations■ Files such as xml, hpj or cnt

cannot be opened, unless anappropriate parser is pro-duced.

■ Occasionally, accessibility is

complicated. For example: • Users need to reopen the Edit

menu and click on "FindNext" for each time thesearch is to be continued upor down unless the short keyis remembered.

• An "Insert File" option avail-able in the File menu couldmake handling resources abit easier. For example, thatway, a number of differentfiles in English to be localisedinto German could be listedin one window, under thesame project name. At themoment, each source file hasa target translation file in adifferent window. Therefore,the translator can easily end-up with too many windowsto open and close.

• Some more basic functionsshould also be available onthe main toolbar (egRedo/Undo, Pseudo-trans-late, Macros, etc) and others,such as "Select All" shouldbe created.

Intended target users Translators, engineers, testers,and project managers.

PriceTranslator Edition: Free; Stan-dard Edition: €700; Professionaledition: €1,100; Team edition:from €2,500

VerdictSimple as it is to learn, PAS-SOLO offers a wide range ofuseful standard features. Cus-tomisation is the concept thatprovides PASSOLO with greatpotential to be turned into apowerful but affordable locali-sation suite. The more effort theuser puts in this concept, thegreater the benefit and time saving. For further information, con-tact Pass Engineering GmbH.Tel: +49- (0) 228-697242 Fax: +49- (0) 228- 697104.Email: info@PASSOLO.com .Home page: www.PAS-SOLO.com. A discussion group for PASSOLO can be reached at:http://egroups.com/group/PASSOLO

JUNE 2002 STANDARDS.loc 23LOCALISATION FOCUSTOOLS.review JUNE 200222 LOCALISATION FOCUS

System Minimum RecommendedRequirements

Operating system: Windows 95/NT 4.0 Windows 2000 or XP

Processor: Intel 486 DX/100 Pentium II

RAM 16 MB (Windows 95); 64 MB (Windows 98);

64 MB (Windows NT 4.0) 128 MB (Windows 2000)

Disk space 16 MB

Monitor SVGA 600 x 800 resolution SVGA 1024 x 768 resolution

Rafael Guzmán works in theLRC’s Localisation TechnologyLab. His email address isRafael.Guzman@ul.ie

About Pass Engineering GmbHPass was founded by Achim Herrmann and Florian Sachse in 1989.After a decade offering user-friendly soft-ware applications for medical analysis systems, Pass developed PASSOLO in 1998. This tool optimises theentire localisation process of software applications at a low cost. In the last few years, Pass has releasedseveral versions of PASSOLO.

Product ratingExcellent Very Good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory

User friendliness ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

Value for money ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

Multilingual support(User Interface) ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

Customizability ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

Overall rating ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Fig. 4: The macros dialogue allows to add, edit, and run macros.

Thirty developers from around the globe took part in the work-shop, which provided participants with a comprehensive insightinto the rationale behind this new development and into its tech-nical specification, which is already being implemented by someof the world’s leading software publishers.

Chaired by IBM’s Director of Technology, Alan Barrett, con-tributors covered fours sessions.

Ian Dunlop of Novell discussed why it is not only possible, butalso necessary to develop common standards, even in the ever-changing and highly competitive world of localisation. Some ofthe existing standards were then introduced by their developers insession two: Gregor Thurmair (formerly SailLabs) and ChristianLieske (SAP) presented OLIF, Otext and TBX; Yves Savourel (RWSGroup) presented OpenTag and TMX; Tony Jewtushenko (Ora-cle) presented XLIFF. Session three explored methodologies andapproaches to develop, maintain and disseminate standards: TonyJewtushenko presented the development of XLIFF as a useful casestudy, Reinhard Schäler (LRC) proposed that compliance certifi-cation will heighten both user confidence in and user awareness

of standards in localisation. He outlined plans to develop the LRC’sLocalisation Technology Laboratory and Showcase (LOTS) intoa repository of information on standards and a compliance test-ing facility. Peter Reynolds and Wojtek Kosinski (Berlitz Global-NET) covered session four and gave a live presentation of howtheir online translation service makes use of XLIFF and stream-lines the automatic processing of translation requests from theorganizers of the world’s largest sporting event in 2003, the Spe-cial Olympics, to be held in Ireland.

The International Unicode Conference is one of the longest run-ning technical and most respected conferences addressing inter-nationalisation and localisation issues. The 21st Conference, whichtook place in Dublin (14-17 May) following the LRC Workshop,attracted more than 140 participants who attended more than adozen workshops and fifty-four presentations. The two keynotespeeches were delivered by the LRC’s director, Reinhard Schäler,and Xerox’ Global Design Consultant, Richard Ishida.

Presentations given at the LRC XLIFF Workshop are availableon the LRC’s website (http://lrc.csis.ul.ie). Information on upcom-ing Unicode conferences is available from http://www.unicode.org.The XLIFF 1.0 Committee Specification is available at:http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xliff/documents/xliff-20020220.htm. The XLIFF 1.0 DTD is available at:http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xliff/documents/xliff.dtd

XLIFF at Unicode

The opportunity to meet and discuss for UNICODE experts fromall over the world

Reinhard Schäler (LRC), Martin Dürst (W3C) and Enda McDonnell (AlchemySoftware Development).

Tony Jewtushenko (Oracle Corporation), Peter Reynolds (Berlitz GlobalNET)and Reinhard Schäler (LRC)

The first-ever full-day public workshop

on the emerging XML-based Localisa-

tion Interchange File Format (XLIFF) in

Europe took place on Monday, 13 May

2002. It was organized by the LRC in

cooperation with the 21st International

Unicode Conference in Dublin, Ireland.

JUNE 2002 TOOLS.review 25LOCALISATION FOCUSTOOLS.review JUNE 200224 LOCALISATION FOCUS

(.OCX), InstallShield Stringtable files (.SHL),C/C++ Text definition files (.H), Java proper-ties files (.PROPERTIES) and Windows INIfiles (.INI)Do you speak UNICODE?Today, there is no way around the UNICODE"character set revolution" in software devel-opment. The very large number of characters(65,536) that can be represented with UNI-CODE also allows RC-WinTrans support forAsian languages (such as Chinese, Japanese orKorean).

RC-WinTrans supports the localisation ofEnglish into Japanese and other Asian lan-guages as well as bi-directional languages suchas Arabic and Hebrew.

Prices & PurchaseThe price for the RC-WinTrans 6.0 StandardEdition is €930. The price for the RC-Win-Trans 6.0 External Translators' Group Licenseis €2720. Prices for updates can be consultedon Schaudin’s website.

Markus Naumann studies Translation atthe Universität Germersheim (Germany) anddid an internship with the LRC. He can bereached at manaumann@gmx.de

IMPORT & EXPORTTMXRC-WinTrans supports Level 1 (out of the three levels) of TMX. Level 1 TMX files contain only plain, untaggedtext such as software messages for example. There is no support for Level 2 and 3 of TMX.

When testing the TMX file export in RC-WinTrans, an error message occasionally reported unsuccess-ful export due to missing MS XMLOLE objects. The solution to this problem was to download and installMicrosoft’s XML Parser (V3). The download of the XML parser is offered on the Schaudin Website.

TRADOS™Another interesting feature is certainly the possibility of using RC-WinTrans in conjunction with TRADOS™Translator's Workbench, as this boosts up your terminology and translation memory resources .

The interchangeability includes concordance search from RC-WinTrans in TRADOS™ translation mem-ories, the exchange of translation memories, the Uniform Translation Check comparing the translation toa current TRADOS™ translation memory and the use of RC-WinTrans´ "Auto-Find","Auto-Find-Get" and"Auto-Save" features in TRADOS™.

The Company and their productRC-WinTrans was developed by the Ger-man localisation technology companySchaudin. The latest release was RC-Win-Trans 6.0 in March 2001. Two service packreleases have followed and the current ver-sion is 6.018. It was released in January2002.

Versions, licenses and editionsThere are two versions of RC-WinTrans thatdiffer in the character set they use:

The MBCS version for 32-bit Windowsplatforms (Windows 95/98/ME and Win-dows NT 4.0/2000/XP) and the Unicodeversion, that works exclusively under Win-dows NT 4.0/2000/XP.

RC-WinTrans is available in different edi-tions: The Standard Edition covers the entirelocalisation process, i.e. it can also be usedto create executable files of translated pro-jects.

The Translator´s Edition only containsthe part of the programme necessary for theactual translation process. It does not enablethe user to create target executable files. TheTranslator’s Edition is included in the licensepackage called External Translators' GroupLicense.

If a localisation project spans over sev-eral internal or external translators, theExternal Translators’ Group License wouldbe interesting. The External Translators’Group License includes one license for the

Standard Edition and the Translators’ Edi-tion for unlimited use.

It is not necessary to purchase a licenseof the Standard version for every translatorinvolved in the project as the free Transla-tors’ version can be used by them. This is acost saving factor to be considered.

WorkflowThe environment for RC-WinTrans projectsis called "Workspace". A workspace con-tains the project files, e.g. an application file.exe, and the corresponding glossaries.

The glossaries can easily be managedthrough the "Glossary" menu or the glos-sary edit bar. Physically, glossaries are storedin Microsoft Access databases (.ddb).

Glossaries can be used to pre-translate aproject, a useful feature to automaticallytranslate recurring strings like "OK" or"Quit". Of course glossaries can also beused at any time during the translationprocess. If "fuzzy matches" are found, theuser is prompted to either accept the sug-gested translation, edit or reject it.

View conceptsThe RC-WinTrans desktop comprises thefollowing components:

■ The "Project Main Window" containsthe main views of "Resources TreeView" and the "Text Table View".

■ The "Resources Tree View" contains alist of all dialog boxes, strings, menusetc. presented in a tree structure (simi-

lar to that of the Windows Explorer).The content of the selected elements isshown in the "Text Table View" to theright.

■ Glossaries can be opened in the "Glos-sary Window" and then be selected andedited in the "Glossary Edit Bar".Entries can be added, changed ordeleted.

■ In the "Translation Edit Bar" the seg-ments to be translated are edited. If the"Auto-Find" function is activated, youare prompted automatically in casethere are matches (100% or fuzzy). Youcan launch all features like "Find &Get" or "Next/Previous" either withhotkeys or with the mouse.

Overall, the user interface is rather attrac-tive and the option to edit strings in a WYSI-WYG mode is very comfortable.

WizardsRC-WinTrans contains a few clever andhandy tools that help ensuring the consis-tency and quality of the translation (see fig.1).

The most powerful of these tools is the"Uniform Translation Check", that checksa project’s current target language for con-sistent translation. The other most impor-tant check functions are:

■ Checking for missing and duplicatedhotkeys in dialog boxes and menus

■ Checking for truncations inside con-trols

■ Checking consistency of control andplaceholder characters (e.g."%s") inthe source and target segment

■ Checking for missing leading or trail-ing spaces in strings

More information:http://www.schaudin.com/doc60Section: 3.17 "Validation and InconsistencyChecks"

Files & moreAs stated at the beginning, RC-WinTransfocuses on Windows resource script andapplication files. There is no support formobile platforms yet (Windows CE, EPOCetc.), nor is there any editing facility forXML files.

Schaudin are currently working on thenext version of WinTrans that will supportall the file formats implemented in the .NETWindows Forms technology. This version’srelease has been announced for this June.

RC-WinTrans supports the following fileformats: Executable files (.EXE), DynamicLink Libraries (.DLL), Resource script files(.RC, .RC2, .DLG), ActiveX controls

Review of RC-WinTrans 6.018 LiteAs the name suggests, RC-WinTrans has beendesigned to localise Windows applications and offersa variety of interesting and useful features.Markus Naumann reports

Check functions increase translation quality and relieve the translator for routine tasks

JUNE 2002 TECHNOLOGY.loc LOCALISATION FOCUS

Localisation professionals search-ing for suitable technology tolocalise their products currentlyoften duplicate their efforts. Thiscentral facility will enable them toidentify suitable technology fasterand more efficiently – and locali-sation technology developers willfind it easier to establish contactswith potential customers.

Research and DevelopmentResearchers and developers do cur-rently not have easy access to a ded-icated localisation laboratory andshowcase. With this new facility,they will be able to experiment withdifferent technologies, operatingsystems and language and localesettings. This laboratory will pro-vide them with access to state-of-the-art localisation technology andencourage and facilitate high-endresearch.

Independent Evaluation and Certification The facility will also enable theLRC to provide test and indepen-dent certification facilities to pub-lishers for products developed inaccordance with emerging standardspecifications.

Support StaffThe staff at the LRC LocalisationTechnology Laboratory and Show-case will guide and assist visitorswith their tasks.

Visibility of your productsLocalisation tools and technologydevelopers are invited by the LRCto make their products available tointerested parties through LOTS forresearch, evaluation and demon-stration purposes. Products featuredin LOTS will be covered on theELECT website and in LocalisationIreland, the LRC's localisation jour-nal.

BenefitsThere are a number of benefits toboth, developers and users of locali-sation technology. Through their sup-port of this central repository andshowcase, developers raise the aware-ness of the tools and technologies cur-rently available, make it easy forpotential customers and users to accesstheir products, and expand the mar-ket for localisation tools and tech-nologies.

Potential users have easy, hands-onaccess to tools and technologies forevaluation purposes, they can gainan immediate overview of availabletools and technologies, and they caneasily match their specific require-ments with available tools and tech-nologies.

LRC – Localisation Technology Laboratoryand Showcase

The Localisation Research Centre (LRC) is one of the world’s leading intelligence, technology and educational centres for the localisation industry. This year the LRC willopen the LRC Localisation Technology Laboratory and Showcase as part of ELECT – The European Localisation Exchange Centre – at the University of Limerick, funded by the European Union under its eContent Programme.

● Are you looking for the latest Local-isation Technology?

● Would you like to get independentadvice on the suitability of specifictools for your projects?

● Do you need advice on localisationstandards and the compliance of yourtechnology with those standards?

Should you wish your product (hard-ware or software) to be included inthe LRC’s Localisation Technology Lab-oratory and Showcase, please contactLRC@ul.ie — subject: LOTS contribu-tion.

For more information emailLRC@ul.ie telephone the LRC+353-61-202881

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

ExhibitionsLocalisation Industry Exhibition and Showcase

European eContent Village

Product DemonstrationseContent Localisation tools

Multilingual eContent technology applicationsTranslation technology

Web Services

Workshops and meetingsThe Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP)

XLIFFTranslation Vendor Web Services

Localisation Teaching and Technology Network (LttN)ELECT Expert Group

SPECIAL EVENTAnnual Localisation Industry Dinner

Please note that this programme may be subject to changehttp://lrc.csis.ul.ie

Keynote addresseseContent Development and Localisation

Translation Vendor Web Services

Tools and TechnologiesDeveloping Content for Global Markets

Localisation WorkbenchesStandards: XML and XLIFF

Content Management

eContent Case StudiesPlaying games around the world

Instant news and information for everybodyLearning anywhere – anytime – in any language

The global web for the small business

12-13 November 2002O’Reilly Hall

University College DublinThe 7th Annual International Localisation Conference and Exhibition organized by the LRC is Europe’s

largest and best-established annual localisation event. This year’s conference is organized in cooperationwith the European Localisation Exchange Centre (ELECT), supported by the European Union eContent

Programme.

27

LRC 2002eContent Localisation

JUNE 2002 LRC.news 29LOCALISATION FOCUSPERSONAL.profile JUNE 200228 LOCALISATION FOCUS

Iblame my career in localisation on anAmstrad CPC 464, the movie, Tron, and atrip round Europe with my grandmother

when I was 13.

Computers have always fascinated me. Fromthe first day my dad brought one home, I washooked. Unfortunately, all software availableat the time, and even most of the instructions,were in English. I realised that I would have tolearn the language of Mr Sinclair if I wantedto move forward.

Years later, I was still interested in comput-ers, but languages and foreign cultures had alsocaught my attention. In 1992, I seized theopportunity to combine my love for both lan-guages and computers and started a degree intranslation at the University of Granada. Myfeeling that both could work together evolvedfurther when in 1995 as an exchange studentat the University of Washington, in Seattle,USA, I came across the Internet and wasamazed by its possibilities.

In 1997, I finished my degree in translation,specialising in technical translation, with anunusual language combination: English, Russ-

ian, Portuguese and Spanish. Before I left, theDepartment of Translation encouraged me todesign and localise their first ever website.

Following my degree, I found that my dis-sertation on "Web Localisation" opened doorsto ITP Spain, where I did an internship as aSpanish localisation specialist and started towork for clients such as Microsoft, PictureTeland Adobe.

Little did I know how closely intertwinedmy love of travel and all things computingwould become. After finishing my internshipat ITP Spain, I moved to St. Petersburg, Rus-sia, to study a postgraduate diploma at St.Petersburg’s Technical University.

Almost a year later I would be back in Spainand after briefly working for Equus Traduc-

ciones, I moved to Boston, USA, where Iwas offered a job at International Com-munications (now Lionbridge).

In Boston, I worked as a localisationspecialist with teams of project managers,translators, technical specialists, and

testers. I started to get involved in a vari-ety of web-based fields working for clients

such as Sun, Intel and Ericsson. Iworked with software,

advertising andprinted and onlinedocumentat ionlocalisation. I laterfound myself in aposition to adviseclients as to howto successfullydevelop multi-cultural webstrategies.

In 1999,the companysent me to

work onsite at Intel’s International ProductDevelopment division in Portland (USA) forthree months. I worked on the localisation intoSpanish of a cutting-edge website that was partof a major worldwide advertising campaign.

Having worked in advertising, I realised thatthe industry was very much dependent on effec-tive cross-cultural communication. Some brandowners were realising they had to drop theirone size fits all, mass marketing approach andthey were looking for ways to make theirbrands more meaningful to customers.

At the end of 1999, I decided to explore theenvironment further and joined Euro RSCGWnek Gosper in London. The agency seemedto be very tuned into the idea that with the helpof localisation, they could reach different kindsof people from all over the world. To meet theever-increasing client demand for a more mul-tilingual and multicultural approach to com-munication, Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper decidedto integrate an in-house localisation team withinInteraction, its online department.

Currently, the localisation department I man-age specialises in the consultancy, development,translation and adaptation of multilingual web-sites, webvertising campaigns, e-commerce solu-tions and several other interactive media(interactive TV, PDA, CD-ROMs, WAP, etc).

The integrated approach to communicationapplied by many clients (traditional media +the Internet), means that the localisation teamhas seen its contribution develop beyond thereaches of the Internet, to serve all media com-munication on and offline, becoming instru-mental to the success of several internationalcampaigns.

Some of our clients include: Intel, UnitedTechnologies Corporation, Credit Suisse, CirioDel Monte, Evian and Alberto Culver.

The localisation department has never beenshort of work since its inception. Working fora busy agency with European appeal has pre-sented me with a constant supply of new andexciting challenges. I believe I have been ableto provide expertise in an area that is essentialto any advertising agency as one of my dutiesis to keep a close eye on developing trends ina number of cultures. I have also had to rein-vent myself in some ways and apply all what Iknew about the localisation industry (usuallyobsessed with software) to something as dif-ferent as advertising. I believe I have been suc-cessful and I also believe the same approachcan be applied to many industries out there.

The sooner more industries realise the ben-efits of localisation the better. After all, whatcould be better for a business than the capac-ity to reach a broader customer base? ■

Jesús Maroto is Localisation Director withEuro RSCG Wnek Gosper. He can be reachedat jesus.maroto@eurorscg.co.uk

Bright lights – big cities:localisation in the advertisement industry

“Having worked in advertising, Irealised that the industry was verymuch dependent on effectivecross-cultural communication.Some brand owners were realisingthey had to drop their one size fitsall, mass marketing approach”

LOCALISATION BEST THESIS AWARDThe deadline for submission of work to the prestigious 6th Annual LRCLocalisation Best Thesis Award, sponsored by Symantec Ireland, isapproaching fast. Students who have completed a thesis on a localisa-

tion-related topic within thepast two years are invited tosubmit their work to theLRC before 31 August 2002for consideration. The scope

of the thesis need not be confined to a technical area, and applicationsare also invited from students who are carrying out research into com-mercial and management aspects of the localisation industry. Thesesmay be submitted prior to their degree award and will be judged by apanel of academic and industry experts. For details visit: http://lrc.csis.ul.ie

Bigger, brighter, betterThe LRC will shortly employ additional staff, expand its offices andopen a new localisation laboratory to provide adequate cover for itsgrowing range of activities. These include the work under the ELECTprogramme, its contributions to the OASIS Technical Committee ofXLIFF, and the Translation Vendor Web Services group.

StaffAngelika Haas recently joined the LRC as project manager of the ELECT

project. The European Localisation Exchange Centre(ELECT) is a two-year project funded by the EuropeanUnion under its eContent Programme. ELECT will becomethe European focus point for multilingual and multicul-tural digital content development and publishing. Ange-lika joins the LRC from Bowne Global Solutions. She can

be contacted at Angelika.Haas@ul.ie

TILPThe Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP) is now up and run-

ning. Members of the 2002/2003 Council are:Fiona Agnew (Deputy President), Alan Bar-rett (President), Matthias Caesar, WendyHamilton (Vice President), David MacDon-ald, John Malone, Michael O’Callaghan andArturo Quintero. Secretary and CEO is Rein-hard Schäler. The Council is currently work-ing on a number of central issues, among them

finance, membership, professional certification and information events.Reinhard Schäler gave a first overview of TILP’s activities at the recentUnicode conference in Dublin on 16 May 2002.

JUNE 200230 LOCALISATION FOCUS

The LRC Industrial Advisory Board meets at least twice ayear to review the work of the LRC, advise on potentialprojects and strategies, and provide support for itsactions. Members of the board recognise the importanceof the LRC’s activities for the localisation industry andsupport its aims and objectives.The board’s chairperson is Alan Barrett (IBM). He waselected at the board’s first meeting in December 1999

LRC Industrial Advisory Board

THE LRC at UL is the focal point and the research and educationalcentre for localisation. It is one of the world’s leading intelligence,technology and educational localisation centres. The LRC was estab-lished in 1995 at University College Dublin under the IrishGovernment and European Union funded Technology CentresProgramme as the Localisation Resources Centre. When the centremoved to the University of Limerick (UL) in 1999, it merged withUL’s Centre for Language Engineering and was renamed theLocalisation Research Centre (LRC).

The LRC is owned by UL. It has a director, faculty members andproject staff. Its Industrial Advisory Board represents a large sectionof the localisation industry. The LRC is supported by UL, itsIndustrial Advisory Board, subscribers to its services and EnterpriseIreland. It’s main areas of research are:

Industry intelligenceLocalisation Exchange PointLocalisation Directory

Contact DatabaseSurveys and industry studies

Education and trainingGraduate Diploma / MSc in Software LocalisationProfessional CertificationProfessional Development CoursesLocalisation Teaching and Training Network (LttN)International Localisation Summer School

TechnologyLocalisation Technology Laboratory and ShowcaseTools and technology evaluation and certificationTranslation and test automationAnnual LRC Best Thesis Award sponsored by Symantec Ireland

The LRC and its functions

Alan Barrett Director of Technology,International Product Development, IBM

Gerry Carty General Manager, Vivendi Universal Publishing Ireland

Ian Dunlop VP & GM, Provisioning Services & Solutions Group, Novell Inc.

Mervyn Dyke Managing Director, VistaTecSeamus Gallen National Software DirectorateJames Grealis Director EMEA Localisation,

SymantecWendy Hamilton Vice President Business

Development, Bowne Global Solutions

Martin Hynes Senior Analyst, FORFÁSBrian Kelly Vice President, Berlitz John Malone Director International Sales and

Marketing, ArchetyponPaul McBride Director European Operations,

VeriTest (Division of Lionbridge)Patti McCann Director of Localisation, Business

Tools Division, MicrosoftDave MacDonald ConsultantDavid Murphy Director Localisation, Siebel

SystemsMichael O'Callaghan Vice President, OracleAnthony O'Dowd President, Alchemy SoftwareKevin Ryan VP Academic Affairs, ULReinhard Schäler Director, LRCJim Seward Head of Professional Services, ETP

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