SDL is excited to announce that our Chief Scientific Officer, Daniel Marcu, will be sharing his vision for automated translation at the TAUS Asia Summit in Tokyo and Beijing.

In this session, Daniel will talk about what is required to transition MT from a component into an ecosystem - one where MT is touched by numerous products and platforms and becomes an integral part of each and every communication.

If your company is just getting started with automated translation, or if you have been using it for years, TAUS events are always a great source of knowledge, best practices and interesting conversations.

If you are interested in learning more about these events or registering, details are below: Hosted by Oracle Japan, Translation in the 21^st Century takes place in Tokyo from April 19-20, 2012. Attendees are encouraged to enjoy an open exchange about language business innovation and translation technology throughout the two day event. This will mark the second TAUS meeting in Japan and is expected to be a fantastic event!

For further information on Translation in the 21^st Century in Tokyo, click: http://www.translationautomation.com/executive-forums/taus-tokyo-executive-forum.html

Language Business Innovation will be held April 24-25, 2012, in Beijing. The event looks to address real language communication challenges both in Asia and across the globe. This open forum is sure to be a can’t miss event for anyone in the area.

To find out more about Language Business Innovation, see: http://www.translationautomation.com/conferences/taus-asia-translation-summit.html

Have you noticed that the way people work has changed over the past decade? As organizations adopt a more dynamic, real time nature of business, the way individuals and teams work together is changing as well. Of course, it’s the internet that has primarily driven this change - making collaboration, sharing and communication easier.

According to Gartner, “By 2015, 40 percent or more of enterprise work will be ‘non-routine,’ up from 25 percent in 2010. [People] will work with others with whom they have few links.  Teams will include people outside the control of the enterprise.”  To address this trend, teams need solutions that enable collaboration regardless of location.

Today, SDL is launching SDL Studio GroupShare - A collaboration solution for small to medium sized translation teams who have out-grown purely desktop solutions and are looking for a better way to centrally manage translation memories, terminology and translation projects.

Vom 18. – 20. Oktober 2011 findet die tekom Jahrestagung in Wiesbaden statt, die SDLs starke Präsenz in den deutschsprachigen Märkten wiederspiegelt.

Sehen Sie die neuesten Lösungen für Textredaktion und Übersetzungstechnologie – abgestimmt auf die Bedürfnisse dieser Märkte – auf den SDL-Messeständen 430 & 437 in Halle 4: 

• Eine Vorschau auf die neue Serverlösung. Diese richtet sich besonders an kleine und mittelgroße Übersetzungsteams in mittelständischen Unternehmen sowie an Übersetzungsagenturen.
• SDL Global Authoring Management System. Die Lösung für Textredaktion und –optimierung berücksichtigt Ihre stilistischen Unternehmensvorgaben, Ihre Corporate Language sowie die deutschen linguistischen Regeln und trägt somit zur Reduzierung der Übersetzungskosten bei.  
• SDL Trados Studio 2011. Die marktführende Translation-Memory-Lösung bietet mit SDL BeGlobal eine sichere, integrierte Lösung für Maschinelle Übersetzung.
• SDL WorldServer 2011. Die Übersetzungsmanagement-Lösung – in deutscher Sprache verfügbar – bietet besonders Übersetzungsteams in globalen Unternehmen sowie großen Sprachdienstleistern die Möglichkeit, den Übersetzungsprozess optimal zu managen. 

Diese und weitere Lösungen präsentiert SDL in verschiedenen Workshops, Konferenzen, Tool- und Standpräsentationen sowie bei Panel-Diskussionen. Eine Übersicht alle SDL-Präsentationen finden Sie unter: http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/news-and-events/sdl-events/emea/2011q4/2011-10-18-tekom-annual-conference-2011.asp

SDL bietet mit seinem Produktportfolio Softwarelösungen für Unternehmen, Übersetzungsagenturen, Übersetzer und Textredakteure. Dabei werden alle Bedürfnisse der verschiedenen Zielgruppen abgedeckt; angefangen bei den Übersetzern und Textredakteuren bis hin zu kleinen, mittleren und großen Teams in Unternehmen und bei Sprachdienstleistern.

SDL OpenExchange rundet das Portfolio ab. Diese Plattform ermöglicht Entwicklern, Applikationen zu erstellen und der SDL-Community kostenlos bzw. günstig anzubieten. Nutzer können dank dieser Anwendungen die Leistung ihrer Übersetzungssoftware weiter steigern, sei es durch die Unterstützung bestimmter Prozessschritte oder weiterer Dateiformate.

SDL OpenExchange sehen Sie live auf unseren Messeständen. Alternativ finden Sie weitere Informationen  unter  http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/sdl-openexchange/. Hier haben Entwickler auch die Möglichkeit, bei unserem Wettbewerb mitzumachen und einen Teil des Gesamtpreises von 10.000€ zu gewinnen. 

Wir freuen uns auf Ihren Besuch!

Last week we hosted the SDL Localization Day, where we looked at the issues of delivering software on a global scale. It was made up of six sessions including, as is so often missed with these events, a customer case study from Roche Diagnostics.

For the format of the day, we ran a series of webinars “nose to tail”, meaning that you could drop in and out as needed. It seemed that most people stayed for all sessions, but as everything was virtual, we didn’t really know if you’d stepped away from your desk for comfort or tea breaks!

Last week I discussed the buzz about Agile and what this means for software localization, and I had some interesting feedback. Now I want to expand on this with some use cases for integrating agile software development with software localization.

Mixing agile and waterfall workflows

You might use agile development but only hand over material to your localization resources when the feature set has stabilized. There will be some mid-localization drops to handle. This is a valid scenario with the main difference being that by using Agile, the time between code freeze and delivery is much shorter than in the more traditional software development workflows. This can be compensated by allocating more resources to the software localization project, or by accepting an earlier but functionally incomplete drop. It is all about when the code is stable and complete enough to involve the localization team. You need to consider the potential for increased management overhead and quality risks.

Loosely coupled agility

If sim-ship is required, it makes sense to start localizing your software earlier in the development life cycle. But even in this scenario it does not necessarily mean that the localization team needs to be embedded in the development workflow and to deliver against each and every sprint (a sprint is the period of time, usually 2 weeks, during which a defined set of development work has to be delivered). The localization team needs to be able to efficiently handle mid-localization updates on perhaps a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Localization based on binary files, the usage of localization tools to maximize the reuse of translations during mid-localization updates, and project management tools can all help to improve efficiency in this scenario.

Software localization embedded into the agile development process

Here we have software localization tightly integrated with the software development process. In its extreme, this means that the localization experts become part of the scrum team as one additional stakeholder to define and drive the development. Tools can help to minimize the friction between the different workflows for development and localization.

What benefits can you expect when you integrate localization more into the agile development workflow? I see three main benefits:

1. Starting localization early in the development process can help to identify internationalization issues at an early stage. This benefit aligns very well to the goals of agile development. 
2. Getting linguists involved at an early stage can help to improve the quality and consistency of  the source language as well as the target languages, and can also bring user experience benefits.
3. If localization is a continuous process, less localization resources need to be allocated for a project and they can become product experts on the fly.

Agile software development does not force us to re-invent the proven workflows used in software localization, although adjustments in the processes and the proper use of technologies will help.  It is more about new opportunities to get more involved, and earlier involved, in the software development process to bring in the expertise about languages and software internationalization.

As a summary let me re-write one of the principles of the Agile Manifesto to underline the value we can provide:
Business people, developers and localization experts must work together daily throughout the project.

If you want to learn more about how SDL's localization tools are supporting agile software localization processes, please join us at the Virtual SDL Passolo day on 22 September 2011. We are running this in English and German and we invite you to participate in the discussion!

Agile software development is a major shift in the industry. Adopting new methodologies takes a while but we are seeing more and more companies adopt agile development. If you are using agile development, don’t you also need agile localization? And if so, what could that mean?

The buzz about Agile

You will have heard (and probably implemented) Agile for software development. Agile sounds good—we all want to be agile, not dull! So there is a danger that agile becomes a buzz word, used too often and in a misleading sense.

The Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org) lists the principles to follow if you want to develop the agile way. Why not apply these principles to other areas, such as software localization? We all would sign off a statement like “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable localized software”, wouldn't we?

Do we need agile software localization?

Agile is about avoiding development of the wrong software or product. The more complex the requirements, the more likely this will happen.  The longer it takes to develop the software, the more likely the requirements have changed in the meantime. Developing successful software products takes time, is expensive and is very risky. Agile helps to reduce the risks.

The major difference between software development and software localization is that a localization project is significantly easier to define. Obviously there are plenty of significant challenges to overcome, but understanding the requirements is not usually one of the biggest challenges.

So I don’t think we need a new agile localization paradigm. What we need is a new relationship between software development and software localization which is defined by the business requirements for the product.

We will be discussing this subject and more in subsequent blogs, and during our Virtual SDL Passolo day on 22 September 2011. We are running this in English and German and we invite you to participate in the discussion!

Today, SDL has launched Elevation Center - the Localization Industry’s First Briefing Center for Cloud Computing.  Globalization and Localization professionals are invited to participate in an industry-wide conversation to drive innovation and advances in the cloud for our industry.

Elevation Center will expand over the next several months and will include a series of presentations, educational seminars, live chat sessions, forums, product demonstrations and podcasts - all delivered through innovative cloud platforms.  Localization professionals can meet peers, network with others in the center, learn about cloud computing, participate in conversations on topics of interest to the industry and explore ways to work together.

Join today to be part of this industry-wide conversation. Sign up to gain access to Elevation Center

Fresh from the Multilingual Web conference in Pisa some things stood out in my mind. One of the things that got me thinking was how customers use the multilingual and how feedback is rapidly spread through social media and how important it is to get it right!

Most large global organizations embraced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems like SAP, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft (now both part of Oracle) more than a decade ago to drive efficiencies and scale in their financial, manufacturing and HR processes. This allowed them to grow their business and control their cost base.

But there are other, often overlooked parts of a business that can benefit from driving efficiencies through defined processes and centralization - The Localization department and translation process is often considered to be a cost-centre in organizations rather than a driver of global revenue growth. If you could deliver your product or service efficiently in more languages could you sell, support and service more customers or reach out to new and emerging markets?

Translation Management is the ERP equivalent for the Localization department and their supply chain of translators and reviewers.

Learn more about how this missed opportunity can become a strategic revenue driver:

• Read the white paper CxO Strategy – The Next Big Win: Localization
• Or Join “The Need for Translation Management” webinars for Europe and Asia on 24 March and the USA on 5 April.

Recently we have seen a couple of interesting customer cases involving XHTML files, so I thought I'd share some tips and tricks for troubleshooting the translation process for XHTML in SDL Trados Studio 2009. Today is the first blog post on this topic, watch out for more tips in the next weeks.