Session Details

Translation and Localization are intrinsically pragmatic endeavours. They also require a good deal of human effort that can be aided by technology. Numerous companies have developed solutions to help themselves, then realized that they were onto a good thing, so they have productized their proprietary solutions for more generalized usage. Well-known localization expert Richard Sikes will paint the background and evolution of three such stories, featuring products for visual software localization, translation workflow, and translation business management, and showing how they are used today.

PASSOLO is a leading software technology for visual software localization. Used worldwide to create software products in many languages, PASSOLO is itself available in several languages. Pass Engineering, a wholly owned subsidiary of SDL International, has automated PASSOLO so as to use itself recursively to build alternate language versions.

At Nero, the manufacturer of popular media creation software that is available in many languages, the localization management team sought, and failed to find, a workflow system to connect Nero’s in-house resources and external service providers that met their needs and desired price point. Deciding that this was a market opportunity, Across GmbH was formed to develop the Across Language Server. Still in use at Nero, the Language Server platform is now available as a mainstream linguistic asset management platform that is continually gaining traction in a highly competitive market.

Several years ago, translation service provider Eurotext approached a neighboring company, EDV-Konzepte, to tailor a system that would manage the business side of translation projects. The resulting application, Plunet BusinessManager, and the company formed to develop it, Plunet GmbH, has increasingly taken on a life of its own, becoming a 100% independent company that has learned from the needs of its customers as it has developed the BusinessManager from a proprietary solution for one company to a customizable solution adopted by a wide palette of clients.