LOCALISATION EVENTS: LOCALISATION IN PAKISTAN … · an insight into SDL's strategy on the importance of China as a global economy and key player in the field of localisation. For

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR LOCALISATION

December 2004

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VOL. 3 Issue 4€7.50 / $7.50 USISSN 1649-2358

LOCALISATION EVENTS:THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL LRC LOCALISATION SUMMER SCHOOL (13-16 JUNE 2005) & THE 10TH ANNUAL LRC INTERNATIONAL LOCALISATIONCONFERENCE (13-14 SEPTEMBER 2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6

LOCALISATION IN PAKISTANDR. SARMAD HUSSAIN & SANA GUL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

LOCALISATION SHOPMICHAEL BOURKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

THE GLOBAL INITIATIVE FOR LOCAL COMPUTING . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

LOCALISATION EVENTS:THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL LRC LOCALISATION SUMMER SCHOOL (13-16 JUNE 2005) & THE 10TH ANNUAL LRC INTERNATIONAL LOCALISATIONCONFERENCE (13-14 SEPTEMBER 2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6

LOCALISATION IN PAKISTANDR. SARMAD HUSSAIN & SANA GUL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

LOCALISATION SHOPMICHAEL BOURKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

THE GLOBAL INITIATIVE FOR LOCAL COMPUTING . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

SDL Launch Chinese Version of itsTranslation Memory Tool, SDLX

SDL International has announced the launchof a Chinese version of its popular TranslationMemory tool, SDLX.

This represents the first time a major transla-tion technology player has localised its productfor the growing Chinese market, and providesan insight into SDL's strategy on the importanceof China as a global economy and key player inthe field of localisation.

For more, visit www.sdl.com

PASSOLO Sets Up Alliances WithRapidTranslation and TRADOS

PASSOLO has recently set up alliances withtwo other leading providers of translation andlocalisation technologies - RapidTranslation andTRADOS to deliver integrated software localisa-tion solutions and services.

The integration of TRADOS and PASSOLOprovides significant benefits in the localisationprocess. Working in the PASSOLO translationenvironment, users can automatically get transla-tion suggestions from a TRADOS TM and canalso access a common MultiTerm database, with

Events in Localisation - 2004/200510 December 2004 - The Europe of 25: NewChallenges, New Opportunities, GALA,Brussels, Belgium; www.gala-global.org

06-08 April 2005 - Twenty-seventhInternationalization and Unicode Conference(IUC27), Unicode, Berlin, Germany; www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc27/iuc27cfp.html

11-14 April 2005 - Eighth International OpenForum on Metadata Registries (Open Forum2005), Allround Team GmbH / TermNet,Berlin, Germany; www.berlinopenforum.de

30-31 May 2005 - EAMT 10th AnnualConference, EAMT, Budapest, Hungary;www.eamt.org/eamt2005/

13-16 June 2005 - 5th LRC InternationalLocalisation Summer School, LRC, Limerick,Ireland; www.localisation.ie/learning/courses/summerschools/2005/index.htm

13-14 September 2005 - LRC – X The GlobalInitiative for Local Computing (GILC), LRC,Limerick, Ireland; www.localisation.ie/learning/conferences/2005/index.htm

PUBLISHER INFORMATIONLocalisation Focus is the publication of theLocalisation Research Centre (LRC). It isdistributed to the localisation community andthose interested in localisation. Please notify thecentre if you or one of your colleagues wouldlike to receive Localisation Focus regularly.Editor: Reinhard SchälerAssistant Editor: Deirdre CoffeyProduction: Cosmon Ltd. 66 Fitzwilliam Lane,Dublin 2. Tel. 01 676 3911Fax. 01 661 1158.Email: [email protected] by: Localisation Research Centre,Dept. of Computer Science and InformationSystems, University of Limerick, Limerick,Ireland.Tel. +353-61-202881Fax. +353-61-202734Web: www.localisation.ie

Opinions expressed by individual authors do notnecessarily reflect those of the editor

When you change address, remember to updateus at [email protected]! This way you will be able to enjoy

reading your magazine wherever you go. © 2004 Localisation Research Centre

PASSOLO offering active terminology recog-nition. With RapidSwitching technologyfrom RapidTranslation the user can integrateruntime language switching into softwarewithout programming knowledge and with-out modification of the source code.

For more, visit www.passolo.com

iSP Strengthens Management TeamiSP (International Software Products) has

announced further investment in theGroup's continuing growth.

To strengthen the management team, the company has been able to attract two senior figures - one from theLocalisation industry and one from theworld of Finance. Roy Steenman, an independent specialist Advisor to growingbusinesses will have responsibility for iSP's growth strategy and Hedley Rees-Evans former Marketing Director at SDLwill be responsible for BusinessDevelopment.

For more, visit www.isp.nl

INDUSTRY.news

LOCALISATION FOCUSCONTENTS.editorialDECEMBER 2004 3

From the Editor2004 – More conferences, more associations,more initiatives than ever before; first signs ofan economic turnaround in the IT sector (butnot much more); activities in economies so farignored by main stream localisation.

2005 – A widespread implementation of theXML-based standard localisation file formatand the standardisation of localisation processes will finally allowlarge-scale localisers to build the localisation factories they havebeen planning for such a long time. Avant-garde localisation, draw-ing attention away from the traditional mainstream localisationefforts driven exclusively by commercial concerns, will move fromits alternative, marginal and irrelevant niche onto the main stage,promoted by The Global Initiative for Local Computing – andefforts by the world’s largest publishers to cater for huge, but notyet commercially viable, new markets.

On behalf of all of us at the LRC, I would like to wish you, yourfamily, friends and colleagues a very Happy Christmas and aHappy New Year!

Reinhard Schäler

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SPONSORSHIP AND ADVERTISINGTo advertise in or to sponsor an issue of Localisation Focus,contact the LRC at [email protected] and find out about the benefits.

GET YOUR COMPANY NOTICEDSend your press releases to [email protected] and get your company on the

Localisation Focus INDUSTRY.news page

To subscribe to Localisation Focus, visitwww.localisation.ie/publications/locfocus/changes.htm

For accessing your issue online: please go to www.localisation.ieand click on “issue online”. Password: Dec0412 ; Username: LocMag12

CONTENTS2 Industry News and Events in Localisation – 2004/2005

4 Localisation Conference: LRC ’04

6 LRC 2005 Localisation Events

7 News from GALA & TILP

8 Globalisation as Localisation – Gary Muddyman

9 Awards

Understanding the Localisation Process of Mobile Text MessagingHuatong Sun

10 The 2004 2nd Annual LRC Best Global Website Award

11 “Optimum-Cost-Ware” in Translator TrainingManuel Mata

12 Personal Profile

The Question(ing) of Standards Nico van de Water

13 Country Focus

Localisation in Pakistan Dr. Sarmad Hussain and Sana Gul

14 LRC Professional e-Learning Courses

16 Localisation Shop – Michael Bourke

17 Alchemy TRADOS Component – Tools ReviewRafael Guzmán

18 Readers’ Forum

19 The Global Initiative for Local Computing

21 LRC News

22 The LRC and its functions

On the 21st and 22nd September the University of Limerickplayed host to the Annual Localisation Conference hosted

by the Localisation Research Centre (LRC). This was the ninthannual localisation conference organised by the LRC and marksthe second time that it has been held at the University ofLimerick.

The theme of this year’s conference was Open SourceLocalisation, a topical subject that is set to play a huge role in thefuture of both the localisation industry and multicultural comput-ing in general.

This theme highlights the constant evolution of the localisationindustry and also shows the drive, determination and desire of people residing in locales that are considered unprofitable ordisadvantaged, to enter the global IT market and promote thedevelopment of their cultures and languages in the electronicworld.

Group at Registration and Exhibition Area

LRC ‘04 was also the venue for the presentation of the annualLocalisation Research Centre awards. This year’s event saw thepresentation of both the LRC Best Global Website Award and theLRC Best Localisation Scholar Award and the announcement ofthe winner of the 8th Annual LRC Best Thesis Award.

The Best Global Website Award, sponsored by Euro RSCGInteraction was presented to Santosh Sinha of the BBC WorldService for their “Your Voice” websites. This award was present-ed to Santosh by Reinhard Schäler (Director of the LRC), RogerDowner (President of UL) and Mario De Bortoli (localisation spe-cialist, Euro RSCG Interaction.

LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION.conference DECEMBER 20044

Branches in:Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia,Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia,Germany, Belgium, China

10 years’ experience on the market

Localization, DTP and graphics services

Translations in all fields, top quality

large volumes within unrivalled deadlines

a registered vendor of the EU.w w w . s k r i v a n e k . n e t

E N I S O 9 0 0 1 : 2 0 0 0 q u a l i t y c e r t i f i c a t i o [email protected], Prekladatelsky servis skrivanek, s.r.o., Nad Zaloznou 499/6,

Prague 8, 18200 CZ, tel.:+420 233 320 560, tel.: (USA): 1-917-254-4455.

CENTRAL AND EASTERNEUROPEAN SPECIALISTSCENTRAL AND EASTERNEUROPEAN SPECIALISTS

LRC ’04- Open Source Localisation

The 9th Annual Localisation Conference and Industry Exhibition

organised by the LRC

This theme highlights theconstant evolution of the

localisation industry and alsoshows the drive, determinationand desire of people residing in

locales that are consideredunprofitable or disadvantaged, to

enter the global IT market andpromote the development of their

cultures and languages in theelectronic world

(L-R) Reinhard Schäler (Director, LRC), Santosh Sinha

(BBC Word Service - Winners of the LRC’s Best Global Website

Award, Roger Downer (President, University of Limerick)

and Mario De Bortoli (Euro RSCG)

The 2004 LRC Best Localisation Scholar Award, sponsored byIBM, was also presented during the conference. This award waspresented to Manuel Mata Pastor, a Madrid based language con-sultant, technical writer, translator and editor, as well as a special-ist in translation and localisation projects. Ray Loughran (seniordevelopment manager – Lotus Engineering) of IBM joinedReinhard Schäler in presenting this award, along with a top ofthe range IBM Thinkpad, to Manuel on the second day of theconference.

The winner of the 8th annual LRC Best Thesis Award, spon-sored by Symantec, was also announced at the conference withthe award going to Ms Huatong Sun, of the RennselaerPolytechnic Institute in the USA.

This year’s conference programme consisted of two days ofhighly focused workshops and plenary sessions, a meeting of theLRC’s Industrial Advisory Board (representing 18 localisationcompanies), the Annual General Meeting for The Institute ofLocalisation Professionals (TILP) and the TILP AnnualLocalisation Industry Dinner at the Castletroy Park Hotel.

Group enjoying the TILP Social event

Representatives of organisations such as IBM, SunMicrosystems, ORACLE, Bowne Global Solutions, PASSEngineering, Vivendi Universal Interactive, LinuxTag andConnect Global Solutions attended the conference and gave pre-sentations and talks on Open Source and it’s implications for thelocalisation industry. In addition Paul Gampe, the director ofengineering for RedHat Asia Pacific, gave a very well receivedkeynote speech for this event.

(L-R) Paul Gampe (RedHat Asia Pacific), Reinhard Schäler (Director,

LRC) and Roger Downer (President, University of Limerick)

LOCALISATION FOCUSLOCALISATION.conferenceDECEMBER 2004 5

This year’s conference programme consisted of two days

of highly focused workshops and plenary sessions …

LOCALISATION FOCUS DECEMBER 20046 LOCALISATION.events

Localisation Summer SchoolLRC 5th International Localisation Summer School

13-16 June 2005, University of Limerick, Ireland

The 5th LRC International Localisation Summer School will take place this June at the University of Limerick in Ireland. The summer school will feature four days of localisation

theory, practical assignments and professional discussions as the LRC guides attendees through the different stages of the internationalisation, localisation & product life-cycle.

Over the course of three days, June 13 to 15, the LRC will offer an intensive introductory course designed to instruct theattendee on both the theory and practice of Software Localisation. The fourth day of the summer school, June 16, willbe dedicated to a series of professional workshops organised by The Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP) andfocusing on the most important developments in localisation today.

� Monday June 13 – Localisation Theory, a day of lectures aimed at providing a solid background to the theory behindsoftware localisation covering all aspects of the industry.

� Tuesday June 14 – Practical Development and Internationalisation, a mix of lectures and practical workshops basedaround the creation and internationalisation of an application based on a supplied specification.

� Wednesday June 15 – Practical Localisation, continuing the previous day’s theme of workshops and lectures attendeeswill localise the application that they designed and created the previous day.

� Thursday June 16 - TILP Professional Workshops, a series of workshops aimed at encouraging discourse and collabora-tion between professionals from the three main areas of localisation: engineering, translation and project management.

This summer why not spend a few days at the Localisation Research Centre and learn about International SoftwareDevelopment, Localisation and Internationalisation. Take advantage of the opportunity to attend TILP professionalworkshops to discuss localisation with industry experts and relax at one of Ireland’s premier universities.

For event updates log on to www.localisation.ie or email [email protected]

To register log on to www.localisationshop.com

LRC – X The Global Initiative for Local Computing (GILC)

13-14 September 2005, University of Limerick, Ireland

The 10th Annual International Localisation Conference and Industry Exhibition organised by the LRC will take place on the 13th and 14th of September 2005 at the University of Limerick in Ireland.

This event will mark the 10th anniversary of the Localisation Research Centre and as such the LRC would like to inviteyou to join us at the University of Limerick to celebrate the first 10 years of the Localisation Research Centre and thelaunch of the Global Initiative for Local Computing.

This event will take place in the brand new, state of the art, engineering building on the University of Limerick Campus.This promises to be a very special event and is one that should not be missed.

Log on to www.localisation.ie for updates and visit www.localisationshop.com to register for this event.

Contact the LRC at [email protected] if you have any queries or if you (or your company) would like to take part in the confer-ence and Industry Showcase.

LOCALISATION.centralThe inside information on localisation

News Update from the Localisation Associations

Events“The Europe of 25: New Challenges, NewOpportunities” in BrusselsDecember 10. Brussels, Belgium. GALA is hosting a one-day multi-disciplinary seminar on business and trading in the enlarged EuropeanUnion. Decision-makers from the corporate world, legal community,regulatory agencies and academia will highlight topics critical to doingbusiness in the Europe of 25. The seminar will cover major issues tiedto expansion, including strategies for conducting business within newregulations, guidelines for meeting language and translation require-ments and marketing to new diverse communities.

NewsGALA Announces Newly Elected Board MembersGALA is pleased to announce that Aki Ito and Arancha Caballero havebeen elected by the GALA membership to the Board of Directors for the2005-2006 term. Aki Ito is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing atPrisma International (USA) and Arancha Caballero is the co-founderand COO of TSG (Servicios de Traducción GLOTAS) (Spain). TheGALA Board is composed of five volunteer members who serve for two-year terms. Current Board members are Hans Fenstermacher fromArchiText Inc. (USA), Renée Sztabelski from Hitext s.a. (Belgium), andDaniel Carter from TOIN Corporation (Netherlands). The newly-elect-ed board members will replace Hedley Rees-Evans from SDi Media(UK) and Don DePalma from Common Sense Advisory Inc. (USA), whoboth served for two years on the GALA Board.

GALA at Localization World San FranciscoAt the Localization World conference last month, GALA hosted vendorroundtables to discuss industry operations as well as sales and market-ing. Vendors from around the world gathered to share strategies forgrowth and improvement in both areas. GALA also united twelvemember companies to sponsor a large exhibit booth on the conferenceexhibit floor. Participating companies were: Aliquantum Inc.,ArchiText Inc., Binari Sonori, Future Group, Gamax Kft., Hitext S.A.,iDisc Information , Technologies, S.L., LinguaNet Group, LocTeam,s.l., MAGIT, Prisma International, Yamane Documentation Inc.

GALA Annual Meeting in San FranciscoOn November 15th, GALA members gathered at GALA’s secondannual meeting to share ideas about the growth of the association, theindustry as a whole and to take advantage of the opportunity to net-work for potential collaboration opportunities.

GALA Supports Industry efforts in South AmericaLast month, GALA sponsored two industry events in South America.The one-day Jornada Internacional de Traducción conference inRosario, Argentina addressed today’s main challenges facing transla-tion into the Spanish language. Afterwards, GALA hosted a network-ing and info-exchange dinner that evening where representatives fromindustry companies gathered for exchange. A week later, GALA wasassociation sponsor of LISE Brasil in Florianopolis, Brazil a conferenceaimed at introducing software publishers to the need for professionalinternationalisation and localisation.

EventsAnnual General Meeting (AGM)TILP held its 2004 AGM on 21 September in the Board Room of theLibrary, University of Limerick. A number of members, present both in per-son and via telephone conference, discussed TILP’s work over the past yearand agreed the major focus for 2005: The development of the CertifiedLocalisation Professional Programme launched at LRC ’04.

The meeting ratified the results of the 2004/2005 Council elections. Thefollowing members were elected to the Council: Matthias Caesar, DanielCarter, Gisela Donnarumma, Carla diFranco, Siobhan King-Hughes, XavierMaza, Arturo Quintero, Florian Sachse, Angela Starkmann, Nico van deWater, Angelika Zerfass. They will join the following Council members whowere not up for election: Fiona Agnew, Alan Barrett, Ian Dunlop, WendyHamilton, Barbara Jarzyna, John Malone, Marilyn Mason

Following the AGM, the Council elected Nico van der Water as VicePresident and re-elected Alan Barrett as President for another term.

For Your DiaryMeet TILP at any of the following events:08-10 December 2004 Summit on Localisation, organised by theManufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) under theaegis of the Technology Development of Indian Languages (TDIL), Ministryof Communications & Information Technology, New Delhi. TILP’s CAOhas been invited by the organisers to deliver a keynote to delegates and tocontribute to a number of sessions during the event. www.mait.com06-08 April 2005 Twenty-seventh Internationalization and UnicodeConference (IUC27): Unicode, Cultural Diversity, and MultilingualComputing, Berlin, Germany (Special Localisation Track organised byTILP). www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc27/iuc27cfp.html10-13 July 2005 IPCC 2005: Making Connections, University of Limerick,Ireland. http://ieeepcs.org/conference/limerick/

NewsRenew your membershipIt is now possible to renew your membership online at www.tilponline.org,using secure online forms and payment facilities. Members can also checkand update their details online and see whether their membership is up-to-date. For those who would like to join TILP, membership application formscan also submitted online.

LttNThe Localisation Teaching, Training and Research Network (LTTN), initiat-ed under the umbrella of the LRC, has been accepted by TILP as one of itsspecial interest groups. The LttN website has also moved and can now beaccessed via TILP’s homepage (www.tilponline.org).

CLPAt LRC ’04, TILP officially launched its Certified Localisation ProfessionalProgramme (CLP) and announced the accreditation of the University ofLimerick and ClobalAnswers Ltd. as providers of courses leading to CLPcertification. Representatives of both the University of Limerick andGlobalAnwsers welcomed the accreditation and expressed their believe thatthe CLP programme will lead to better recruitment, more focussed careerdevelopment opportunities and higher quality training for the localisationprofessionals.

TILP ContactFor general information on TILP, membership application forms (associateand professional) and news visit www.tilponline.org or email [email protected].

The Globalization andLocalization Association (GALA)

GALA is a fully representative, non-profit,international industry association for the trans-lation, internationalisation, localisation andglobalisation industry. The association gives

members a common forum to discuss issues, create innovative solutions,promote the industry, and offer its clients unique, collaborative value.Web: www.gala-global.org

For more information contact [email protected]

The Institute ofLocalisation Professionals (TILP)

TILP is a non-profit organisation owned byits members and directed by its electedCouncil. TILP’s aim is to develop professional-ism in the industry. Individual professionalscan apply for associate or professional membership. Web: www.tilponline.org

For more information contact [email protected]

LOCALISATION FOCUS LOCALISATION. central DECEMBER 20048

Glo

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To many, “globalisation” is just one of the countless buzz-words permeating the business world today. Despite its

prevalence, however, many – if not most – business people have noreal understanding of what globalisation actually means. Ask atypical businessperson to define it, and you’re likely to get a vaguecommentary on the top international brands – like Coca Cola,McDonalds and Disney – but no real definition of globalisationitself.

For those of us in the localisation industry, the need to under-stand the process of globalisation is critical. Whether you are thelocalisation expert yourself or the client manager responsible formultinational initiatives, a fuzzy concept of what globalisationentails will eventually lead to failure. Yet, a debate among manymultinationals continues to rage: To globalise or to localise?That is the question, and the answer is far more complex than abuzzword’s semantics.

The complexity lies in the need to include local cultural issuesin every multinational program. Whether it is predominantlyglobal, international or local in design, every intercultural initia-tive is also a localisation campaign, and the boundaries betweenglobalisation, internationalisation and localisation are frequentlyblurred. Global and international campaigns that ignore localsensitivities will, at best, be less effective than intended or, atworst, fail completely. As former German Chancellor WillyBrandt said, “If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’mbuying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”

But flawless translation isn’t enough to ensure a successful local-isation campaign. For maximum effectiveness, business managersand localisers must plan and think within the dimensions of theirtarget markets. The challenge is to identify what these dimensionsactually are, rather than to assume the source messages will con-vey their intended connotations in foreign markets.

Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede, conducted a comprehen-sive study on how workplace values are influenced by culture.After analysing more then 100,000 people in 50 countries aroundthe world, Professor Hofstede has developed a model that differ-entiates cultures according to five measurable dimensions: PowerDistance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, andLong-Term Orientation. Understanding how these five culturaldynamics are structured in diverse target markets can help glob-alisers and localisers alike avoid serious pitfalls.

Power Distance Index (PDI)focuses on the degree of equal-ity, or inequality, between people in a specific society. Ahigh PDI ranking indicatesinequalities of power andwealth within the society. Alow PDI suggests a society thatde-emphasises the differencesbetween citizens’ power andwealth.

Individualism measures the degree the society rein-forces individual achievement.A high Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and per-sonal rights are paramount within the society. A lowIndividualism ranking typifies societies of a more collectivistnature, cultures that reinforce extended families and sharedresponsibility.

Masculinity addresses the degree the society does or does notreinforce the traditional masculine role model of work-relatedachievement, control, and power. High Masculinity societies aremarked by strong gender differentiation, and males dominate theculture’s power structure. A low Masculinity ranking indicatesthe country has a minimal level of differentiation and discrimina-tion between genders.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) focuses on the level of tol-erance for uncertainty and ambiguity within the society. A highUAI describes a culture that dislikes unstructured situations, lay-ing the foundation for a society with excessive laws, regulationsand controls. A low UAI indicates the country has less concernabout ambiguity and more tolerance for a variety of opinions andsocial risks.

Long-Term Orientation (LTO) describes the degree the society embraces, or disregards, a long-term devotion to tradi-tional values and commitments. A high LTO indicates a culturewith a strong work ethic and an inclination to honour its long-term commitments, but businesses may take longer to develop in this society, particularly for an “outsider”. A low LTO indicates the country has a short-term, non-traditional orientation. In this culture, change can occur more rapidlybecause traditions and prior commitments are not an impedi-ment.

Professor Hofstede’s model gives businesses, to quote the pro-fessor himself, “the edge of understanding” required to duplicatesuccess in other cultures and languages. Whether the question isto globalise or to localise, the answer is always to empower yourmessage with cultural sensitivity.

Gary Muddyman is Managing Director of Oxford Conversis, a Bicester,England-based provider of Localisation, Translation and Interpretation(LTI) services. He can be reached at [email protected]

Globalisation as Localisation: A Model for Measuring Cultural Diversity

To globalise or to localise? That is the question. Here, Gary Muddyman takes a look at globalisation as localisation and how business managers

and localisers must plan and think within the dimension of their target markets in order to ensure a successful localisation campaign.

Global and international campaigns that ignore local

sensitivities will, at best be lesseffective than intended or, at

worst, fail completely

Gary Muddyman

LOCALISATION FOCUSLOCALISATION. centralDECEMBER 2004 9

Awards

When mobile text messaging was designed and introduced as avoicemail alerting service a decade ago, nobody had imagined the

great impact it would have on contemporary culture and communicationtechnologies. Mobile text messaging has been a popular communicationmode in East Asia, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world nomatter if the cultures in those regions are described as high-context, low-context, collectivist, or individualist.

The popularity of mobile text messaging challenges our prior assump-tions of technology use and pushes us to think of issues of culture,usability, and localisation in a broader context. From a design point,mobile text messaging is a hard-to-use technology with inherent limita-tions (for example, small display, poor inputting methods, and movingenvironments). From a localisation point, the technology of text messag-ing involves only minimal localisation work at the developer’s site —phone manufacturers mainly just translate the interface and menu intolocal languages for operational affordances.

Why do a large group of users worldwide adopt and stay with a hard-to-use and poorly-localised technology? To obtain local explanations andunderstand cultural factors surrounding this technology use, I conductedcomparative case studies of frequent users of mobile text messaging intwo distinctively different cultural contexts: the US and China. Methodsincluded survey, diary study, qualitative interview, and shadowing obser-vation. Forty-one frequent users of mobile text messaging participated inthe study, with ages ranging from 18 to 30. Among whom, 19 came fromthe US, and 22 from China. I developed a new framework of culturalusability (Sun, 2004) bringing social-cultural contexts into user activitiesto guide my research.

The fieldwork shows that despite unsatisfactory localisation work atthe developer site— “developer localisation”, the localisation work atthe user’s site — “user localisation” —seems to be very successful:Frequent users have been developing localisation strategies and success-fully localised this technology into their daily lives. They used mobiletext messaging to cope with emotional moments, enhance work and per-sonal life, maintain social contact with old friends, send wedding invita-tions, exchange funny jokes, coordinate activities between friends andloved ones, and so on. Furthermore, with effective user localisation atlocal sites, different social affordances of the technology were realisedupon similar instrumental affordances of the technology. In the US, par-ticipants primarily used text messaging as a form of fun communicationand small talk while in China participants used it as a way of staying incontact with friends to exchange longer threads of information.

A cultural circuit (Hall, 1997) view of mobile text messaging will helpus better understand the localisation process here. As we can see fromFig. 1, the developer localisation only occurs during the process of pro-duction, designing the instrumental affordances of mobile text messagingfor local users, while the user localisation pervades the processes of con-sumption, regulation, representation, and identity. Clearly there is astronger element of user localisation rescuing the weaker developer local-isation in mobile text messaging, making the circulation of the technolo-gy on the circuit possible.

The circuit view also raises questions for current developer localisa-tion. The links between these processes should be two-way transactions,but the fieldwork rarely found how the production process responded tothe use patterns emerging from the processes of consumption, represen-tation, and identity. For example, though mobile text messaging technol-ogy was used for different communication purposes, the fieldwork was

unable to find out how thelocalised messaging applica-tions provide instrumentalaffordances for these differentcommunication functions. Ifthis situation continues, thecurrent successful user localisa-tion might not be able to besustained as the momentum ofthis circuit decreases.

What do the contrastingphenomena of developer locali-sation and user localisationsuggest for our future localisa-tion practices? We need to havean expanded vision of localisation process that includes efforts fromdesign through use, i.e., developer localisation and user localisation. Thescope of localisation should go beyond a single stage in the softwaredesign and engineering cycle (for example, translation and interfacedesign) and enter the site of local use and consumption. Second, the cul-tural issue of localisation needs to be situated into concrete use activitieswithin concrete contexts, and the cultural issue of localisation needs tobe understood in a dynamic fashion and in a broad way. Third, the focusof localisation work needs to move from localising for operational affor-dances to localising for social affordances.

Fig. 1: Localisation Process on a Cultural Circuit

ReferencesHall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and

signifying practices. London: Sage.Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the Scope of Localisation: A Cultural

Usability Perspective on Mobile Text Messaging Use in American andChinese Contexts. Unpublished PhD's dissertation, RensselaerPolytechnic Institute, Troy.

Huatong Sun is Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric at Grand ValleyState University in Michigan, USA, with a PhD from Rensselaer PolytechnicInstitute. Her research interests lie in user-centered information design, inter-national technical communication, and software localisation. She has beenworking on website localisation and cultural usability since her Master’s proj-ect four years ago. She can be reached at [email protected]

Understanding the Localisation Process ofMobile Text Messaging on a Cultural CircuitHuatong Sun, winner of the 2004 LRC Best Thesis Award,

explains her winning entry

Huatong Sun


Awar

ds

The aim of the Best Global Websiteaward is to find Europe’s most inno-

vative multilingual and multicultural web-site and to raise the awareness for theseissues amongst web developers and policymakers. The award attracted a large number of entries from many differenttypes of organisations ranging from rela-tively low-scale community sites toextremely high-tech commercial sites. The2004 edition is the second year of thisaward, which was initially established aspart of the European Union EuropeanLocalisation Exchange Centre (ELECT)project.

The review panel for this award consist-ed of eminent experts in the area of mar-keting, web design, internationalisationand localisation from various differentEuropean companies. The panel high-lighted the importance of the award as asignificant encouragement to businesspeople and web developers to integratemultilingual and multicultural mecha-nisms into their website designs.

Members of the 2004 expert panelwere:� Alasdair Scott (Creative Partner, Filter)

� Scott Rodgers (Creative Director, EuroRSCG Interaction)

� Mario De Bortoli (LocalisationSpecialist Euro RSCG Interaction)

� Chiara Galvan (Translator and ProjectManager SOGET)

� Mats Wennerholm & PremtonGervalla (www.modersmal.net - 2003award winners)

The panel agreed to include the follow-ing areas as part of their review:

� Number of languages.

� Regularity of update schedule.

� Excellent quality at all levels (linguistic,content, design, usability, program-ming).

� Cultural compliance.

This year the judging panel agreed topresent the 2004 LRC Best GlobalWebsite Award to the BBC World Service“Your Voice” websites:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/talking_point/default.stmhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/interactivity/http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/interactivity/http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/forums/default.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/talking_point/default.stm

BBC World Service broadcasts pro-grammes around the world in 43 lan-guages and is available on radio andonline at www.bbcworldservice.com. Itsinternational online sites attract around280 million page impressions and reachmore than 16 million unique users amonth.

The “Your Voice” websites werelaunched in Spanish, Russian (see fig 1),Arabic, Persian and Urdu in October 2003with the objective of making onlinedebates between people in different coun-tries possible throughout the world.

Fig. 1. “Your Voice” Russian edition

The objective of the “Your Voice” sitesis to enhance the news services of theWorld Service with a more interactive andconnected forum of debates around keyglobal issues. Activity in and betweenthese languages facilitates debates acrossthe Muslim world, and the voices emerg-ing from such debates enrich WorldService and News content in English andother languages.

The sites are administered by their ownteams to define the editorial direction andgenerate content. These teams meet regu-larly to ensure that language isn’t a barrierto sharing good content – something gen-erated by Arabic may be as relevant, edi-

torially, to Persian or Russian. The aim isto ensure that a truly global story isshared and read by a global audience intheir own language.

LRC director Reinhard Schäler wasquoted as saying: "The judging panel wasimpressed by the clear and user friendlydesign, respect for native language andsuccess in promoting and creating crosscultural dialogue."

Myra Hunt, Head of BBC WorldService New Media, commented: "It is anhonour to receive recognition for the skillsand expertise of the Your Voices onlineteam and to be able to play a vital role inbringing different voices across the worldtogether to debate the issues that affect allour lives."

In explaining their decision, the judgingpanel commented that “among the rea-sons for this decision is the thoroughnessof content localisation, the clear and user-friendly design, the respect of the naturallanguage, the successful and flawless man-agement of large amounts of very dynamiccontent, the success in promoting and cre-ating cross-cultural dialogue, the carefulchoice of content to be published in eachlanguage according to editorial relevancefor that market, the integration of audioelements, and the innovative use of dia-logue-promoting tools (blogging software,for instance). All these factors result in anamazing and captivating website of greatcross-cultural interest and service”

The panel and the LRC congratulate theBBC World Service on winning the awardand wish them every success for the futureand evolution of their website.

The LRC would like to thank theawards’ sponsor, Euro RSCG Interactionfor their continuing commitment to theaward and for all the support they provid-ed.

The LRC would also like to acknowl-edge and thank every site that entered andsupported this award. The span of entries,ranging from small community drivenwebsites to expansive multinationalbacked sites shows the importance of pre-senting and promoting multilingual andmulticultural websites on the web.

The 2004 2nd Annual LRC Best Global Website Award

The Localisation Research Centre’s 9th Annual Localisation Conference “Open Source Localisation”, at the University of Limerick in Ireland, was the venue for the

presentation of the 2nd Annual LRC Best Global Website Award, sponsored by Europe’s largest interactive marketing agency, Euro RSCG Interaction.


Awards

Over the past decade or so, translator-training institutions(TTIs) around the world have been making substantial

efforts to successfully meet the demands of the localisation mar-ket. Initiatives aimed at including localisation as a subject matterwithin TTIs’ existing curricula and courses, in order not to lagbehind the ever-changing needs of the localisation market, haveoften involved major investments by TTIs, which still face a num-ber of obstacles concerning not only pressing infrastructure andequipment costs but also a shortage or lack of lecturing time allo-cated to localisation, grant schemes, trainers' training initiativesand research funding.

Within this context, "optimum-cost-ware" (OCW) may open uppromising opportunities to achieve a more affordable and successfulapproach to translator training for this market. The notion of OCWembraces two sides of the same coin:� A pool of readily available resources whose cost may be afford-

able to any TTI willing to implement them —including fully-fledged commercial products under special pricing conditions,beta versions, (satel-)lite versions, demos, shareware, freeware,open-source software or self-made solutions.

� A thoroughgoing review of the long-term objectives and overallmethodological approach normally adopted in translatorInformation and Communication Technology (ICT) trainingincluding, as core aspects for its redefinition: promoting the abili-ty for self-learning, adapting to new work environments andempowering students.

Hence, OCW refers not only to the kind and the number of toolsbeing used in the learning process but also to new ways of using themthat entail questioning some product-based, interface-driven learningstrategies usually employed in this field, in addition to other aspects oflearning such as the materials and assessment systems employed.

The adoption of an OCW-based approach to translator trainingentails a cost shift whereby the actual barrier is no longer the price of a certain commercial product, but the factored cost of long-term investment in renewed training strategies. Today the high or prohibitive price of buying, putting into place, maintainingand upgrading a certain product for academic purposes no longerseems to be a valid excuse. In fact, just a few years ago TTIs wereobliged to acquire a specific licence package at market prices or with asymbolic and oftentimes token discount in the best-case scenario.Today, however, other possibilities are on hand, ranging from free pack-

ages and substantial volume-baseddiscounts to a wide variety of in-kind licensing schemes (throughadvertising or different sponsorshipor collaboration formulas). Itseems that Computer AidedTranslation (CAT) tool developersare gradually becoming aware ofthe advantages that can be gar-nered from their product(s) beingused in translator training centres.

With regard to the use of OCWfor streamlining the learningprocess, once TTIs’ existing curricula are reviewed, it seems as ifmost of them, especially at undergraduate level, are still focusingtheir objectives, methodological grounds, course materials andassessment practices on an underlying training model based on just ahandful of highly priced commercial applications —namely, half adozen well-known translation memory systems or localisationsuites—. Thus, the teaching/learning process is, more often than not,geared by a "(single-)application-towards-processes" approachrather than by a "processes-through-(many) applications" approach.

This model is proving to be reasonably successful. However, notonly does it entail a substantial investment effort (barely affordable tomany); it also reflects an approach to translator training which neg-lects some essential aspects of effective training such as the authenticempowerment of learners and the true development of life-long (self)learning skills. It is partly the TTIs’ responsibility to provide transla-tors with the necessary elements and skills during their initial trainingto be in the best possible position to take their own personal deci-sions. To a great extent, the breadth of their professional horizonswill largely depend on such decisions, and an OCW-based approachto learning may greatly facilitate such a complex task.

Manuel Mata Pastor received a BA degree in Translation andInterpreting from the University of Granada in 1989. He currentlylectures in localisation and CAT tools at the UniversidadComplutense and the Universidad Autónoma, both in Madrid, aswell as in several postgraduate courses. He also works as a freelancelocaliser and as a strategic consultant for the Spanish globalizationcompany Linguaserve. He can be reached at [email protected]

Manuel Mata

Special Mention, Best Thesis AwardThis year, the judging panel for the Best Thesis Award decided to give a special mention to one author, Alessia Lattanzi, for a detailedcase study of a localisation project into Italian, backed up by a review of localisation-relevant literature published in Italian:Localizzazione di Catscradle, submitted to Libera Università degli Studi “S. Pio V” di Roma as a Tesi di laurea in localizzazione.

Special Mention, Best Global Website AwardThe judging panel of this year’s Best Global Website Award also gave special mention to two sites for their contributions to multilin-gual and multicultural web design.www.volldamm.es - The Volldamm website presents exceptional design and creativity, all perfectly communicated in all three lan-guages. It works perfectly for it’s purpose and can easily be defined as one of the most imaginative and good looking online brochureson the web.www.riberbar.com - This well-balanced site is almost perfectly realised and receives a special mention for its refreshing user-friendlydesign, the consistency of content quality in each language and the excellent management of frequent updates.

“Optimum-Cost-Ware” in TranslatorTraining for the Localisation Market

2004 Winner of the LRC Best Scholar Award, Manuel Mata, tells us about his winning proposal


Pers

onal

Pro

file

Nico has always had an interest in languages as such, andEnglish in particular. He went to Teacher Training

College (with degrees in English and Geography), and contin-ued his studies at Nijmegen University (Netherlands), withspecial interest in Linguistics, Modern American Literatureand Portuguese. He took up teaching English in 1979, but itwasn't long before the language bug caught him again, and in1986 he sat the rather notorious State Exam. Even before, butespecially during his teaching days, he had already beeninvolved in freelance translation work, mainly for a SocialSciences research institute in his hometown. Passing the exammade him decide to switch from teaching to translating full-time. Hands-on translation experience heightened his interestin grammar, semantics and lexicology, and he found a usefuland pleasant "application" in solving English-language cryp-tic crosswords.

More puzzling, and much more of a challenge, were his firststeps in localisation. Nico's approach was (and is) both thor-ough and original, service-minded as well as with the end-userinterests at heart. Together with a software engineer, Nicoredesigned the database structure of one of his first projects inSoftrans – in hexadecimal format! Nowadays, this would beunthinkable, for various reasons, not in the least those ofcost-effectiveness and budgets.

During his Softrans days he joined the ITA (IrishTranslator’ Association), but returned to the Netherlands, andstarted doing localisation and translation assignments forcompanies like IBM and (then) Digital EquipmentCorporation (DEC). At this time, Nico had his first experi-ence with tagged file formats, with the forerunner ofTranslation Manager and SDML (Standard Digital Mark-upLanguage), respectively.

Through his translation and localisation projects for thesetwo companies, he discovered the importance of correct ter-minology and terminology management. Also at DEC he wasasked to write, rather than translate, a manual for an in-houseapplication. It was the first in a whole series of technicalauthoring assignments, and an introduction to User Interface(UI) design, programming, and the relevance of linguisticinput into the design and development cycles.

His experience over the years has given Nico valuableinsight into the relations between software development, soft-ware localisation, technical authoring, and the translation ofmanuals and Help systems, and has increased his emphasis onstandards, quality, the right tools for the job, and how these

combine to do a job well(he hopes to publish anarticle on these aspectsshortly). It also fuelled hisdesire to get more formaltraining, ranging fromcourses in HTML, XML,and XSLT, to a year ofpost-graduate TheoreticalLinguistics at TrinityCollege Dublin, more thanthree years of legal transla-tion studies at MaastrichtUniversity, and attendingnumerous seminars.

His interest in standards,for example, led to a pres-entation on XLIFF duringthe 8th Annual LRC Conference in Dublin in 2003. He joinedTILP, was recently elected on its Council (where he is going tochair the Membership committee), and is also a member ofGALA, OASIS-OPEN and STIC (the Dutch technical authors'interest group). In addition, he is looking for a way to sharehis broad and diverse experience, possibly through a course fortechnical authors. "It is beyond me why most programmersand technical authors – US and non-US alike – still use wordsand phrases that cost their employers money in terms of locali-sation or translation. Take specs like '1024MB'. Each time thenumber changes, for example into '512MB', it becomes a newlocalisable string. Using the ISO convention of a space betweenthe number and the unit would lift the necessity of translatingsuch strings, because most CAT and localisation tools parseand treat them in a different way."

Through the TILP Council, Nico hopes to contribute to thestanding and appreciation of the profession of localisers,mainly because localisation and translation have become toomuch of a commodity. "Especially independent localisers andsmall localisation companies are under increasingpressure–both in terms of finance and time–to meet almostunobtainable objectives and deadlines. In addition, mostlocalisation and translation professionals are faced with lin-guistically speaking badly developed or written source materi-al, and in many cases end up rectifying errors from developersand technical authors." As a standards-oriented person, Nicowants to contribute to raising the professional standards oflocalisers as well as translators. "Sometimes, just asking ques-tions is not enough. That's when questions turn into question-ing, when raising standards and standing becomes a require-ment, and when personal commitment in the form of activeinvolvement is called for."

Nico van de Water is a full-time Technical Communicatorand runs <pro_file> DocSolutions in Nijmegen (Netherlands).He can be reached at [email protected]

The question(ing) of standardsNot everyone remembers all the important questions in one's life,

but Nico van de Water certainly remembers that one question on the afternoon of the 16th June 1987, during a phone call from Ireland, "Would

you be interested in the position of Dutch translator with us?"

Nico van de Water

It is beyond me why most programmers and technical authors - US

and non-US alike - still use words and phras-es that cost their employers money in terms

of localisation or translation


Country Focus

WITH 150 million people speaking more than 60 languages,localisation has become an important requirement for the IT

industry in Pakistan. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan andalso the lingua franca. Other main languages include Punjabi,Siraiki, Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi, all of which are written inArabic script in Pakistan. Local language computing in Pakistandates back to the early 1980s, when DOS based word processorsfirst started emerging. Eventually, systems were developed forMicrosoft Windows 3.1. Most of these systems were based onNaskh style of writing and supported Urdu and many otherPakistani languages. However, the preferred style of writing (espe-cially for Urdu) has been Nastaleeq. As the latter style is very com-plex, because, for example, it is much more cursive and context sen-sitive, initial word processors could not support it. Commerciallevel Nastaleeq support first emerged in the mid-1980s whenMonotype released the Inpage Urdu word processor. This softwareis still widely used and is now slowly being replaced with the adventof Open Type Font technology based software.

At first, most of the word processors developed were not based onany standards. However, the advent of the internet forced encodingstandardisation. Most of the existing software now is either basedon Unicode or provides export and import facilities to it. TheUnicode standard has also been updated by a proposal from Pakistanto include initially missing characters of Urdu and other major lan-guages of Pakistan. Although it has minor problems (for example theletter Hamza joins in Urdu, but is defined as a non-joiner inUnicode), Unicode 4.0 supports these languages fairly well. Work isalso underway to develop other computing standards in joint effortsby the National Language Authority and the Ministry of IT withinthe Pakistani Government. Work is already in progress on localestandardisation including the definition of keyboards and collation.Work is also underway to translate and standardise terminology onthe interfaces of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs) like computers, mobile phones, and handheld devices.

Internet and email have widely triggered the need for localisationin Pakistan. Local language internet, email and chat programs havealso developed the expectations of the user to have other applica-tions in local languages as well. This increased demand from usershas encouraged the localisation industry, which was earlier limitedto desktop publishing, to develop. Having realised this necessity,multiple large projects are also being initiated by the public sectorfor its internal use and for providing services to citizens through e-government programmes. This is giving a further boost to the local-isation industry in Pakistan.

One of the major public sector localisation initiatives has been theNational ID cards project. Hand-written manually made NationalID cards were previously issued in Pakistan. In 2001, the NationalDatabase and Registration Authority (NADRA, www.nadra.gov.pk)was specifically commissioned to automate this work. Their taskwas to develop a complete Urdu language database of Pakistani citi-zens and issue them with computerised local language ID cards. Todate, over 18.3 million Pakistanis have been issued these identitycards. Most recently, the Pakistani Government commissionedNADRA to develop computerised Pakistani passports as well asmanaging birth certificates and other similar national projects.Though many of these projects are developed in-house, some work isalso out-sourced to national and international localisation compa-nies, for example, NCR’s TeraData is being used by NADRA fordevelopment of multilingual (English and Urdu) data storage systems.

Another large-scale initiative of the Punjab state Governmentincludes the automation of land revenue records. Similar projects are

also being started in Pakistani states. Smaller projects include recent-ly developed software that records Senate and Government proceed-ings in Urdu. Recently, work has also stared on converting parts ofthe official Pakistani Government website (www.pakistan.gov.pk)into Urdu. Most of this work is being outsourced to private localisa-tion/web-development companies by the Ministry of IT. Many ofthese companies are also involved in developing localised websites inother languages such as Spanish and German for European businessesrequiring e-commerce portals.

The Pakistani Government is also eagerly supporting Researchand Development projects to help develop local language support.At the moment, the Government is supporting an Urdu LocalisationProject (www.e-government.gov.pk) which aims to develop anEnglish to Urdu Machine Translation system to help enable citizensto access English centric information on the internet in their locallanguage. The project also aims to develop an Urdu text to speechsystem to target the illiterate and disabled population. This threeyear project will end in June 2006.

Due to the increased usage of computers and the internet,localised operating systems are also under development. Work is inprogress to localise both Microsoft Windows, Mircosoft Officesuite and Linux. In addition, the localisation of hand-held devices isalso being completed by the private sector. However, except forUrdu, little work is being done for other local languages.

With incredible development in the mobile sector, there is highdemand for localised handsets and services. Companies like Nokiaand Samsung are already providing localised interfaces in Urdu,though work in other languages is still missing. Only limited servicesare being provided by telecommunication service companies at themoment but there is presently huge potential in the market, fromlocal language SMS messages to more advanced localised services.

The last few years have seen an immense realisation and focusshift from earlier English-centric work to localised tools and tech-nologies. With increased customer demand and technological possi-bilities, the localisation industry in Pakistan looks more promisingand dynamic than ever.

Dr. Sarmad Hussain heads the Center for Research in UrduLanguage Processing (CRULP) at the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (www.nu.edu.pk) in Lahore, Pakistan. His interests include local language computing,including script, speech and language processing. He can bereached at [email protected]

Sana Gul is Regional Research Officer at the Center for Researchin Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) for PAN Localisation proj-ects focusing on Asian localisation. She is actively involved in docu-ment localisation for Asian languages. She can be reached [email protected]

Localisation in PakistanDr. Sarmad Hussain & Sana Gul take a look at the localisation industry in Pakistan

Dr. Sarmad Hussain Sana Gul

The need for e-learning in localisation toolsDuring the Second InternationalWorkshop on Language Resources forTranslation Work, Research and Trainingheld in Geneva (September 2004),Reinhard Schäler explained how profes-sional translators are constantly chal-lenged with the preparation of very large quantities of digital content simulta-neously for different markets at affordablecosts. This can only be done, he said, with the support of language resources as well as the appropriate software tools.

However, at that very same workshop,Angelika Zerfass warned that translationtools can be complex to learn and are con-stantly changing.

Some of the reasons for this problem isthe lack of available training, long dis-tances, high fees, and tight professionaltimetables, which make it very difficult formost people to keep up-to-date with newlocalisation technologies.

In order to overcome this, online train-ing via e-Learning can be an excellent andmuch cheaper alternative to traditionalcourses for many people. e-Learningallows localisation professionals to updatetheir skills in current localisation toolsavailable for different fields (for exampleProject Management, Translation, QA,and Engineering). Another advantage isthat e-learning allows users flexibility toattend online courses from anywhere inthe world, at their own pace and in theirown time.

e-Learning courses offered by the LRCThe LRC has so far provided three typesof e-learning courses: Introduction tolocalisation tools, Tools for QA andTesting and Tools used for translatingWebsites.

Who are the targeted participants?These courses are targeted at lecturers andstudents of localisation, along with any-body who may be interested in getting anintroduction to the different types oflocalisation technologies.

So far, more than 50 people from 25countries have participated, including

countries such as Brazil, Egypt, Lithuania,Slovenia, and the USA.

The professional background of partici-pants varied, but most were Translators,Engineering Coordinators, Project Man-agers, and some University Lecturers.

Level of the coursesThe level of the courses is basic-intermedi-ate.

Duration:On average, the total duration of eachcourse has been 10 hours (not includinglive chat sessions) spread over 2 weeks.However, this depends on the actual pro-fessional experience and previous knowl-edge of each participant.

The LRC e-learning portalAs Fig. 1 shows, the LRC e-learning webportal comprises of eight different sections.

Fig. 1: Structure of the LRC e-learning portal

a) HomeThis section introduces the course partici-pants to the course and its aims, andobjectives.

b) AnnouncementsCourse participants can check this sectionon a regular basis for announcementsmade by the course facilitator, regardingany aspect of the course.

c) CalendarThis section displays the scheduled datesfor the chat sessions and deadline for sub-mitting the course assignments.

d) AssignmentsThis is the section where the course partic-ipants access their course assignments.Each assignment focuses on providinghands-on experience on how to use differ-ent types of tools to translate text, or fullylocalise different types of files.

For example, during past courses, partici-pants fully localised and tested the GraphicalUser Interface (GUI) of an application, test-ed and fixed a Help file. They also translateda Website, generating a budget and a report.Assignments also included the use ofMachine Translation (MT) and the creationof Translation Memories (TM).

e) Course material This section allows participants to down-load all the relevant sample files and doc-umentation necessary to complete theassignments onto their own PCs.

f) CommunicationThis is one of the most exciting sections,as it enables participants to interact witheach other and with the course facilitator.The LRC e-learning portal provides twomain types of communication tools (apartfrom email): chat sessions and a discus-sion board.

Although it is not compulsory to attendany of the chat sessions, the course facili-tator is available for eight scheduled hours(GMT) during the courses. During eachsession (see Fig. 2), any participant canmention (in real time) the problems anddifficulties that they are having, or anycomments on any aspect of the coursethey wish to make. The main advantage ofthis is that they normally get an immediateanswer either by the course facilitator ortheir peers. Shortly after each chat session,an edited transcript is made available onthe LRC portal, where it is easy to identifythe main topics covered. This is particu-larly useful for those participants whocannot participate at the scheduled timesdue to work commitments.

Fig. 2: Chat sessions

The discussion board (see Fig. 3) has alsoproved to be very useful for sharing prob-lems/solutions and different comments


e-Le

arni

ng LRC Professional e-Learning CoursesFor many, a lack of available training, long distances, high fees, and tight professional

timetables make it very difficult to keep up-to-date with new localisation technologies.

In order to overcome this, the LRC has started to provide professional courses via e-Learning.

among participants on the main featuresand limitations of the tools covered in thecourses. Having participants from a widevariety of countries and cultures enrichesthese courses. For example, some partici-pants localising some files from Englishinto Japanese or Arabic found some bugsor limitations in some tools. Of course,feedback was passed on afterwards to therelevant tools developers, who greatlyappreciated it.

Fig. 3: Posted messages in the

LRC discussion board

g) LOTS Online: LOTS Online section is one of the major learning components of the LRC’s e-learning portal. It is a server thatallows course participants to access a virtual laboratory containing a large number of current localisation tools (seeFig. 4), sample files, and tutorials. All the tools available in LOTS have been

donated by different tools developer companies.

The sample file types available onLOTS Online include .XML, .EXE.RESX, .HTML, terminology, Crystalreports, databases, documentation, Flash,Help, Images, and buggy files (for exam-ple containing clipping and overlapping).

Fig. 4: The localisation tools available on

LOTS Online are organised into different

categories

As Fig. 5 shows, LOTS Online enables users to practise using full versions of the tools covered in the course, to try other related tools and also to comparetheir features, advantages, and disadvan-tages.

Fig. 5: Localisation of a sample .EXE file into

Arabic over the Internet using Catalyst 5 on

LOTS Online

h) ELECT PortalThe ELECT Portal section links to anexternal localisation portal (also run bythe LRC), which provides resources and information for localisation profes-sionals, for example news, localisationdirectory, courses, white papers, tutorials.www.electonline.org).

Future coursesThe LRC is currently planning more pro-fessional e-learning courses focused onSoftware Localisation and ComputerAided Translation (CAT) tools. For moreinformation, visit www.localisation.ie/learning/courses/index.htm


Feedback "These courses have been a useful look at some of the tools available, especially those to help translators".Liz Andoe, Engineering Coordinator (UK)

"The programs/tools that were provided gave a good overview of what is possible with regards to the localisation of web pages. The instructions were clear enough to be able to work with the programs and to try out different things."Vincent van Gelderen, Project Manager (The Netherlands)

"The assignments helped me to learn about the main features of localisation tools and how I could use them in my future work." Tatjana Jevsikova, Researcher (Lithuania)

"I found the course very well designed and interesting."Alexandra Alburquerque, Lecturer (Portugal)

"The guidelines/instructions of the tutor complemented the assignments so well that I really enjoyed the work." Mia Dintinjana, Translator (Slovenia)

"I think the material has been very useful to practice with." Angela Blum, Translator (Spain)

Localisation Tools Donated to LOTS OnlineCatalyst 5 (Alchemy SoftwareDevelopment)

Caterpillar (Stormdance Software)

Crystal Translator Professional 2.2(Softlang)

Déjà vu X (Atril)

Globalisation Image Assistant (Bjorn Austraat)

Heartsome TMX/XLIFF (Heartsome)

LTC Organiser 4.6 (The LanguageTechnology Centre)

LTRAC (Language Translation ResourceAutomation Console)

Lucas (Celar Pawlowsky)

Metatexis 2.41 (Hermann Bruns)

Multilizer 6.1 (Multilizer)

Multiterm (TRADOS)

Multitrans 3.7 (Multicorpora)

Passolo 4.0 (Pass Engineering GmbH)

Personal Translator (Lingenio)

Petra Expert (SYNTHEMA Srl)

Practicount (Practiline Software)

Promt Expert (Promt)

RC-Wintrans Pro 7 (Schaudin.com)

SDL Localisation Suite (SDL DesktopProducts)

Star Transit/TermStar XV (STARLanguage Technology)

Terminology Wizard (SYNTHEMA Srl)

Trados 6.5 (Trados)

Tramigo (Avral Technologies Ltd)

Translate Magellan (Logomedia Corp.)

Translation Office 3000 (AdvancedInternational Translations (AIT)

Visual Localise Premium (AppliedInformation Technologies AG)

WebBudget 3 XT (Aquino Software)

Word Fast 4 (Wordfast)


Loca

lisat

ion

Shop

As the name suggests, the Localisation Shop is dedicated to all thingslocalisation, all of which can be purchased online instantly. It sells

goods and services produced by the Localisation Research Centre (LRC)and select third-party affiliates.

The site is essentially made up of five different areas, detailed below.

Fig. 1: Home page of the Localisation Shop

ServicesWith the Localisation Shop (see Fig. 1), services such as banner advertise-ments and job advertising can be purchased and set up online. With ban-ner advertisements, customers can purchase advertising space, specify abanner of their choice to run, and see their advertisement up and runningwithin minutes. The Localisation Shop allows users to submit job adver-tisements to the LRC’s jobs section, a localisation specific job advertisingsection with very high exposure. The Localisation Shop helps you to tar-get localisation professionals with focused advertising, and find the creamof the industry for your job vacancies.

SubscriptionsWant to subscribe to important industry magazines and periodicals? Youcan do so immediately with the Localisation Shop. Delivery details andpayment are all handled online, so now you have no excuse for not keep-ing up with the latest industry developments with magazines such as theLRC’s Localisation Focus.

MembershipsThere are a growing number of organisations and industry groups of inter-est to localisation professionals. The Localisation Shop will soon allowindividuals to join such groups online. The shop automates the detailsgathering process and supports immediate online payment of registrationfees.

ItemsThese are magazines, books, papers and other items for sale that do not fit into the other main categories. Following online payment, each item is immediately dispatched to customer. Also available are items that can be downloaded following purchase – the customer does not have towait for delivery. Such items include PDF versions of magazines andreports.

EventsOften event organisers require attendees to print out a form, complete itand post it along with payment. It’s an old and outdated method in

today’s wired world and with theLocalisation Shop, registration for a locali-sation event can be completed in minutes(see Fig. 2). Each event listing includes detailed information about theevent, including location, duration and agenda.

Fig 2: Event registration page

Online PaymentPurchasing goods online with credit cards is now standard everywhere,and the Localisation Shop is no exception. It supports online credit cardpayments allowing all goods and services to be purchased immediately –there are no annoying invoices or lengthy registration processes to dealwith. The Localisation Shop’s payment system is secure and private, usingindustry standard encryption to keep customer details safe.

AffiliatesThe Localisation Shop mainly sells items and services produced by the Localisation Research Centre. We will soon begin selling items produced by third-parties and services offered by affiliated organisationsand we are currently looking for suitable organisations to work with. The shop will handle payment and details gathering on behalf of the affiliate. For instance, the site would offer registration and payment facilities for an upcoming conference on behalf of another organisation. If you or your organisation would be interested in becoming an affiliate, please contact us for more information (see below for contactdetails).

FutureWhen we were creating the Localisation Shop we wanted to create a system that was useful for localisation professionals and easy to use. We hope we have achieved that goal. You’ll be able to peruse the compre-hensive list of products for sale and read through the services offered. Weare also keen to receive feedback and suggestions from the industry, sovisit the Localisation Shop soon and see what it can do for you.

Michael Bourke is a Research Associate at the Localisation ResearchCentre where he works on several projects. He is responsible for designingand developing the Localisation Shop. He can be reached [email protected]

Michael Bourke

Localisation ShopWhere do you go if you want to buy the latest localisation publications?

What site allows you to advertise specifically to a localisation audience? Where can you find and register online for localisation related events? The answer is Localisation Shop (www.localisationshop.com) the new

website created and run by the Localisation Research Centre (LRC).

For further information, please visit www.localisationshop.com oremail [email protected]


Tools Review

In October 2004, Alchemy announced theintegration of a new TRADOS component forCATALYST. This new component is a plug-inthat allows CATALYST users to export trans-lations into TRADOS Workbench (TWB) orTRADOS Multiterm termbases.

The TRADOS plug-in is part of the CATA-LYST Service Pack 3 (available for downloadon Alchemy’s Website). After installing thisservice pack, CATALYST will then beupgraded from version 5.02 to 5.03.However, CATALYST will run in demomode, and, therefore, the user will need torequest a (free) updated certificate file to re-activate CATALYST.

How the Alchemy TRADOS Component works

Once an application has been translated ina CATALYST .TTK file (see Fig. 1), the usercan export the translations into TWB. To dothis, the user needs to click on the “Tools”menu on the CATALYST main toolbar, andthen select “Export terminology”. The user isthen presented with two options in relationto exporting the terminology, option onebeing “TRADOS Workbench” and optiontwo “TRADOS Multiterm”.

Fig .1: Translating the User Interface of an .EXEfile from Arabic into English in a CATALYST

5.03 .TTK file

If the user chooses to export the transla-tions into TWB, a dialogue box will appear(see Fig. 2). The user can then choosewhether the TRADOS Translation Memory(TM) is to be stored in his or her local PC(“File” option), or on a remote server(“Server” option). If the TRADOS TM isstored in the local PC, the user can simplybrowse to the exact location where the TM issaved and select it.

When exporting the translations to aremote server via the intranet or the Internet,the following information needs to be enteredin: the name of the TRADOS TM server andthe name of the actual TRADOS database towhich the translations are exported (forexample “MyApplication_ArEng”). The userthen has to choose to authenticate him orherself using either the “Windows” or “TRA-

DOS authentication” option. The user thenneeds to click the “Connect” button.

Fig. 2: The Alchemy TRADOS component inCATALYST 5.03 allows users to easily exporttranslated strings from a CATALYST .TTK file

into TRADOS Workbench

Once the connection to TRADOS TMserver has been established, or the local TMselected, the user can specify filters to extractthe translations (see Fig. 2). For example, theuser can choose to extract translations fromall strings in a project or from one object.Other filter options include extracting stringsmarked as “signed off” and “hotkeys”. Theuser then needs to click Ok, and CATALYSTwill extract the translations accordinglydepending on the selected options into thespecified TRADOS TM.

In Fig. 3 we can see how the translated seg-ments exported can be leveraged.

Fig. 3: Strings translated in CATALYST .TTK filescan be reused in TRADOS Workbench

The process of extracting translations intoTRADOS Multiterm is identical to exportingto TRADOS Workbench. However, if theuser needs to export the translations into aTRADOS Multiterm termbase located on aremote server, you need to enter a usernameand password. Once the translations have

been exported to Multiterm, the user canleverage them (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: The Alchemy TRADOS component inCATALYST 5.03 allows users to easily exporttranslated terms from a CATALYST .TTK file

into TRADOS Multiterm termbases

VerdictIn the previous version, CATALYST could

import TRADOS TMs (.TTX or .TMX) asglossaries to generate leverage. However,with the new TRADOS component, CATA-LYST 5.03 can locally interact with TRADOSin both directions. Like most features inCATALYST, the TRADOS component is easyto use. Other software localisation tools suchas Passolo also offer local integration withTRADOS resources. As well, Multilizer isintending to offer remote integration withTRADOS in the not too distant future.However, to my knowledge, CATALYST iscurrently the only software localisation toolconnecting to a TRADOS TM server over theinternet although it still does not allow theuser to import TMs remotely. Other thanthis, the new Alchemy TRADOS componentis an excellent enhancement to CATALYST.

Rafael Guzmán is coordinator of the LRC’sLocalisation Technology and Showcase (LOTS).He can be reached at [email protected]

Alchemy TRADOS Component

About Alchemy SoftwareDevelopmentFounded by Tony O’Dowd and EndaMcDonnell in December 2000, Alchemyacquired the intellectual rights of the formerCorel CATALYST toolset, and has success-fully developed it since then. Alchemy, basedin Dublin, have a sales and administrationoffice in Oregon (US), and a number ofpartners in different countries in Europe andAsia. Used by over 200 companies world-wide, Alchemy CATALYST provides locali-sation technology for all MS Windows pro-grams, and supports a wide range of different file formats.

For further information, contact AlchemySoftware Development Ltd., Tel: +353-1-7082800; Fax: +353-1-7082801. E-mail: [email protected]. Web: www.alchemysoftware.ie.

Rafael Guzmán reviews the latest enhancement to Alchemy CATALYST


Read

ers’

For

um

“Hot topic” for industry trade groupsI have a great deal of respect for the activistswho are working on behalf of the industry tocreate industry standards and who are explor-ing mechanisms by which they can feasibly beregulated. This is a "hot topic" for industrytrade groups.

Although my opinion may not be "politicallycorrect" in the current climate of ambitiousgoal setting, I have found that my time is bestspent focused on quality via continual systemevaluations and improvements and via invest-ment in proprietary technology upgrades.

The market regulates quality and will contin-ue to do so, especially as the sophistication ofbuyers increases. Companies that have, follow,and publish quality processes get and keep cus-tomers. Others don't.

General Manager Shelly Orr Priebe leadsMcElroy Translation where she has spent sev-enteen years. She values technology, processand people, and she is willing to assert a con-troversial opinion. She can be reached [email protected]

Talking about standardisation in aservice industry where the main goalis to please the customer is a wasteof time and effortWho is saying that standards are the top of theagenda of the industry?

In a world of ever-evolving technologieswhere processes and practices become obsolete

before they become established, talking aboutstandardisation in a service industry where themain goal is to please the customer is a wasteof time and effort. In the localisation industry,we need to stop talking about ourselves (stan-dards) and start talking about our clients' needs(differentiation). After all, who is going torefuse work from a client that does not complyto a standard?

On the other hand, some clients occasionallywant to stimulate the creation of standards toavoid unnecessary work. My message to them isshort: "You are the client. Ask, and you shall getwhatever you want (for a small fee, of course)."

Renato Beninatto is a partner at CommonSense Advisory, Inc., a research and consultingfirm specialising in localisation and globalisa-tion. A corporate strategist and internationalbusiness consultant, Renato has more than 20years of executive-level experience in the locali-sation industry. He can be reached [email protected]

The current technology that is becom-ing available on the market is chal-lenging expensive legacy tools andimproving our businessTMX is a great example of an open standard, created by leading companies in theindustry, agreed and documented to a highlevel, that has been adopted by many in theindustry. Any company that is prepared to

invest in R&D to enhance the produc-tivity of translation is a plus to theindustry. It costs a considerable amountto invest in technology development soonly a small number will have theresources and the skills to do this prop-erly. If these companies are also pre-pared to sell the technology onto otherplayers in the industry this also willhelp the industry develop and improve.The current technology that is becom-ing available on the market is challeng-ing expensive legacy tools and improv-ing our business.

With regards to organisational frame-works available, LISA is probably thebest-suited independent forum.

Once standards are developed andagreed, a professional body that has thecapabilities to follow a scripted certifi-cation should verify compliance.

Mark Lancaster founded SDL in1992 having identified the need for ahigh level service provider for the glob-alisation of software. He was a founderdirector of LISA, the LocalizationIndustry Standards Association, withwhich he continues his involvement. Hecan be reached at [email protected]

Standards increase market accessand acceptance, improve sales effi-ciency and lower trade barriersThe economic output of Europe and theAmericas is increasingly based on conceptualrather than physical products and services. AlanGreenspan, Chairman of the U.S. FederalReserve Board, remarked on this recently*:"This trend has, of necessity, shifted the empha-sis in asset valuation from physical property tointellectual property and to the legal rightsinherent in intellectual property." So you areright to stipulate that this is an industry driver.

However, most companies can distinguishthe intellectual properties that are central totheir core competencies, from those whichalthough they have value, are not as significantto their business strategy.

Meanwhile, we have seen that standardshave created immense opportunities for ourindustry. The Internet, Web, and Unicode beingobvious examples. I have to change cell phonetechnology when I travel to each of Asia,Europe or the US, which inhibits my usage andpurchases of related services. However, I canaccess the Web and Internet worldwide and inseveral languages. This has made global com-merce accessible to small businesses and great-ly increased sales of products and services.

Businesses therefore see the benefits of stan-dardisation and can trade-off the value of intel-lectual property that is not critical to their corecompetencies, against the lowered costs andincreased revenue opportunities that standardsbring with them. This is why so many compa-nies have contributed to Open Source projectsand standards organisations such as the W3C,OASIS and Unicode.

Standards increase market access and accept-ance, improve sales efficiency andlower tradebarriers. They provide economies of scale andreduce development time and costs. Oftenproducts have increased value where standardshave made integration with other products pos-sible. XLIFF is a small but relevant example inour industry.

Many companies today recognise that theeconomic benefits of having standards in placefar outweigh the asset value of many of theirintellectual properties, and therefore are con-tent to stipulate to standards organisations thattheir concepts can be used without fear of feesor retribution.

* www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speech-es/2004/200402272/ Remarks of Alan Greenspan.

Tex Texin is founder of XenCraft, a consult-ing and training company specialising in soft-ware globalisation and helping companiesaround the world move to new markets and theweb. Tex is also an active participant in OpenSource and Standards organisations such as theUnicode Consortium, WorldWide WebConsortium and IBM ICU. He can be reachedat [email protected]

Next IssueLocalisation Focus invites its readers to comment

on this statement and send their contributions [email protected] by 28 January 2005.

Current mainstream localisation efforts are primarilydriven by commercial concerns: no market – no localisa-tion. Localisation initiatives not focusing on Return onInvestment (ROI) are generally not even considered bythe industry who look on them as unrealistic, uncoordi-nated, and unworkable – doomed to fail.

The Global Initiative on Local Computing is aiming tobring together companies, organisations and individualswho believe that there are other reasons to localise, e.g.political, social and cultural. They believe that there isevidence to support the claim that their efforts are gain-ing large-scale support by governments and supra-national organisations which will eventually break thedominance of the commercially driven, licensed-basedindustry players in internationalisation and localisation.

Do you believe that there are other important reasonsto provide access to local computing to communitiesaround the world? Is there a need for local initiatives tocoordinate their work, organise forums to exchangetheir experiences and pool their resources? Are the aimsof the Global Initiative for Local Computing, to supportlocal computing across geographical, political, socialand economic divides, achievable?

Readers’ ForumLast issue’s proposition was:

After more than a decade, standards seem to be on the top of the agenda again in the Localisation Industry.This happens at a time when efforts to protect corporate Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are also rising to the top of the industry's agenda.

Standards can only be developed jointly and involving all stakeholders while IPR claims are explicitly designed to keep the competition out.Do you believe that the industry can resolve the tension between its strive for IPR on one hand, and the need to cooperate, even with competi-

tors, on the other? Are there any organisational frameworks available which are particularly suited for this kind of cooperation?Once standards are developed and agreed who, do you believe, should verify compliance?

LOCALISATION FOCUSLOCALISATION. initiativeDECEMBER 2004 19

The Global Initiative for Local ComputingMainstream localisation efforts have so far concen-

trated on languages and cultures rich enough toprovide a profitable market for localised products.Therefore, companies have localised their products forthe Danish market (with 3 million Danish speakers), butnot for the languages of Asia and Africa, some them spo-ken by more than 100 million people.

If it is true that access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is crucial for economic andsocial development, then the lack of access must increasethe already existing divide between the rich and the poor.

There is a strong argument that says that all peoples ofthe world, regardless of culture or language, religion or ethnicity or gender, geographic location or economicmeans, should benefit from the use and application of ICT. The use of ICTs should take place in the language andculture of those peoples’ choice, with no negative affectson that language and culture and their continued exis-tence.

In the recent past, a number of largely uncoordinated,commercial and non-commercial initiatives have beenestablished which aim to foster what could be calledavant-garde localisation, i.e. a strand of localisationwhich uses new and fresh criteria to decide whether appli-cations or digital content should be localised or not.

Among those are:� Open Source Localisation Initiatives – The Economist

reported in December 2003, that he leading desktopinterfaces for the open-source Linux operating system—KDE and GNOME—are, between them, available inmore than twice as many languages as Windows. KDEhas already been localised for 42 languages, with a fur-ther 46 in the pipeline. Similarly, Mozilla, an open-source web browser, now speaks 65 languages, with 34more to follow. OpenOffice, the leading open-sourceoffice suite, is available in 31 languages, includingSlovenian, Basque and Galician, and Indian languagessuch as Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam. Andanother 44 languages including Icelandic, Lao, Latvian,Welsh and Yiddish are on the way.

� University-based Localisation Projects and Research –an increasing number of universities engage in locali-sation projects and research, encouraging students todevelop localisation and translation tools, helping outwith the definition of new character encoding schemesfor languages which are deemed not-commerciallyviable. Among these are universities in Brazil, SouthAfrica, the USA, Canada, India, Pakistan, Iran, andmany European countries.

� Initiatives by commercial developers – some develop-ers now provide low-cost solutions for low-cost coun-tries which are integrated into their mainstream prod-ucts, e.g. Microsoft’s Language Interface Pack (LIP);other commercial developers have become involved ininitiatives such as the Common Locale DataRepository or OpenFont.

Now that there is a critical mass of avant-garde locali-sation happening, it makes sense to pool togetherresources, to exchange knowledge and expertise, and topublicise and develop these efforts through a broad,coordinated initiative.

This initiative is currently in its preparatory stages. Wehope to include as many organisations and as wide aspectrum as possible in these preliminary discussions,which will lead to the launch of the Global Initiative forLocal Computing (GILC) in September of 2005.

GILC will work with appropriate organisations aroundthe world to ensure that all people have access to com-puters and information technologies in their preferredlanguage and following their favoured cultural practices.

What we wish to see in the long run is that� computers are able to work in all major languages,

with encodings and rendering engines for their writ-ings systems and freely available software and fonts tosupport their use;

� working groups are actively adding new languages tothose for which computers have already been enabled;

� local human activities in all their diversity are beingsupported by appropriate software and informationtechnologies.

To achieve this, GILC will:� maintain websites and databases as a source

of knowledge about software localisation and associ-ated technologies, providing advice as needed via theweb;

� initiate and run projects researching into fundamentalissues in technologies and social sciences related to thedigital divide;

� initiate and run projects developing technologies tohelp endangered languages survive;

� provide informed input into relevant standards devel-opment, notably through agencies such as W3C, ISO,OASIS and the Unicode consortium;

� liaise with major technology providers in issues of thedigital divide;

� liaise with governments and their agencies concerningpolicies and practices related to the digital divide;

� liaise with research and educational institutions, col-laborating in projects and promoting programmesaimed at overcoming the digital divide;

� provide consultancy services;� run training programmes around the world, both as

face-to-face courses and as e-learning courses.We are planning to organise workshops at some of the

internationalisation and localisation events over the com-ing months. We will also establish a website to facilitatethe discussions among interested parties interested inproviding input to the development of GILC and consid-ering their participation.

We believe that it is about time to unlock the enormous potential localisation has to contribute to the creation of equal access to ICT for billions of people currently excluded – and independent of their cul-ture or language, religion or ethnicity or gender, geo-graphic location or economic means. We invite you tojoin us.

Pat Hall and Reinhard SchälerIf you are interested in joining GILC or would like

more information about this initiative, email [email protected]

News from theLocalisation Research Centre

Localisation ShopThe Localisation Research Centre is pleased to announce the launch of theLocalisation Shop (www.localisationshop.com), an online store for the localisationcommunity. Recently launched, the Localisation Shop allows localisation profes-sionals to purchase useful items and services as well as enabling people to registerfor upcoming events online, including the 2005 LRC Conference. The LocalisationShop aims to cater for the needs of all members of the localisation community.

The Localisation Shop uses industry standard encryption to ensure credit cardpurchases are safe and secure. Many items for sale can be downloaded immediatelyafter purchase so customers don’t have to wait for the arrival of hardcopy goods.Registrations for events can be completed online including payment and attendancedetails. In addition, the Localisation Shop will soon carry third-party products andservices. For more, visit www.localisationshop.com.

LRC ConferenceThe 10th Annual International Localisation Conference and Industry Exhibitionentitled LRC – X: the Global Initiative for Local Computing (GILC) organised bythe LRC will take place on the 13 and 14 September 2005 at the University ofLimerick, Ireland. See page 6 for details or visit www.localisation.ie for more infor-mation and programme updates. Registration for this event is available atwww.localisationshop.com.

LRC Summer SchoolThe 5th LRC International Summer School will take place this June at theUniversity of Limerick, Ireland. The Summer School will feature four days of locali-sation theory, practical assignments and professional discussions as the LRC guidesattendees through the different stages of the internationalisation, localisation &product life-cycle. See page 6 for details or visit www.localisation.ie for more infor-mation and programme updates. Registration for this event is available atwww.localisationshop.com.

Localization ReaderThe second annual 2004-2005 Localization Reader, containing articles from

Localisation Focus and MultiLingual Computing and Technology can now be down-loaded from www.localisation.ie/publications/reader/2004/index.htm.

The 2004-2005 reader is made up of a selection of 36 articles, which have beenpublished over the past twelve months in both magazines. The reader is free and isintended for teachers of localisation and translation and their students, who other-wise may not have access to up-to-date reading material.

Sun to Establish Localisation Lab at ULSun Microsystems Ireland and the LRC are to establish a Sun Localisation

Laboratory at the LRC. The facility will be used for research, teaching and doinglocalisation work on Sun and open source platforms. Sun is kitting out the facilitywith 10 computers running either Solaris - Sun's proprietary operating system - orLinux.

The venture is intended to strengthen the relationships between industry andeducation by allowing researchers to learn more about Sun and open source plat-forms and students to gain experience in the practical application of localisationquality assurance (QA) concepts while gaining exposure to Sun technologies. (ByBrian Skelly. Press release published on www.siliconrepublic.com and in The IrishIndependent 20-09-04 Business and The Irish Times 21-09-04 Business). For moreinformation, visit www.localisation.ie/news.

LOCALISATION FOCUSLRC. newsDECEMBER 2004 21

LOCALISATION FOCUS ADVISORY.board DECEMBER 200422

Logrusspecializes in complementary solutions:

• Multilingual solutions (localization, contentmanagement, engineering and testing)

• Large production site in Moscow• Large and complex projects

• ERP/CRM/BPO specialization• Multilingual software development projects

• Multilingual Web content management

Logrus • [email protected] • +1(215)947�4773

Logrus is a provider of multilingual solutions into a large number of languages,making it possible for software publishers and other companies to ensure globalpresence of their products. We specialize in large and highly technical projectsrequiring unique technical experience, a high level of self+sufficiency, and outstand+ing problem+solving capabilities.

Logrus was founded as a dedicated software localization company. We go beyondtranslation (although we do a lot of translating) and beyond programming (althoughwe do compile software, prepare the builds and fix bugs). We are localization professionals.

Alan Barrett Retired

Gerry Carty General Manager,Vivendi UniversalPublishing Ireland

Tom Connolly Business DevelopmentDirector, PulseLearning

Ian Dunlop Independent

Mervyn Dyke Managing Director,VistaTec

Seamus Gallen National Informatics Directorate

James Grealis Director, EMEALocalisation, Symantec

Wendy Hamilton Vice President,Business Development

Bowne Global Solutions

Martin Hynes Director,The Embark Initiative, IRCSET

Brian Kelly Senior Vice President,Bowne Global Solutions

John Malone Director, InternationalSales & Marketing

Archetypon

Paul McBride Vice President,International Operations

Veritest (Division of Lionbridge)

David McDonald Management Consultant

Eugene McGinty CEO,Connect Global Solutions

David Murphy Director, LocalisationSiebel Systems

Michael O’Callaghan Vice President,Oracle Corporation

Brian O’Donovan Senior DevelopmentManager, IBM

Anthony O’Dowd President,Alchemy Software

Chris Pyne Business Partner Manager, SAP

Kevin Ryan Principal Investigator,Irish Software Engineering

Research Consortium

Reinhard Schäler Director, LRC

The LRC at UL is the focal point and the researchand educational centre for localisation. It is one

of the world’s leading intelligence, technology and edu-cational localisation centres. The LRC was establishedin 1995 at University College Dublin under the IrishGovernment and European Union funded TechnologyCentres Programme as the Localisation ResourcesCentre. When the centre moved to the University ofLimerick (UL) in 1999, it merged with UL’s Centre forLanguage Engineering and was renamed theLocalisation Research Centre (LRC).

The LRC is owned by UL. It has a director, facultymembers and project staff. Its Industry Advisory Boardrepresents a large section of the localisation industry.The LRC is supported by UL, its Industrial AdvisoryBoard, subscribers to its services and EnterpriseIreland. Its main areas of research are:

Industry Intelligencewww.electonline.org - The localisation community'sonline information resourcewww.localisation.ie - The website and archive of theLocalisation Research CentreAnnual LRC Conference

Education and TrainingGraduate Diploma / MSc in Software LocalisationProfessional Development CoursesSummer SchooleLearning CoursesLocalisation Teaching, Training andResearch Network (LttN)

Technology and ResearchLOTS - The Localisation Technology Laboratoryand ShowcaseStandards VerificationLocalisation Process AutomationTranslation TechnologyTest Automation

The LRC Industrial Advisory Boardmeets at least twice a year to review thework of the LRC, advise on potentialprojects and strategies, and provide sup-port for its actions. Members of theboard recognise the importance of theLRC’s activities for the localisation indus-try and support its aims and objectives.

The board’s chairperson is AlanBarrett. He was elected at the board’sfirst meeting in 1999.

LRC IndustrialAdvisory Board

THE LRC AND ITS FUNCTIONSTHE LRC AND ITS FUNCTIONS

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TILP 2004-2005 CouncilFiona Agnew, Alan Barrett (President), Matthias Caesar, Daniel Carter, Gisela Donnarumma,

Ian Dunlop, Carla diFranco, Wendy Hamilton, Barbara Jarzyna, Siobhan King-Hughes, John Malone, Marilyn Mason, Xavier Maza, Arturo Quintero, Florian Sachse,

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www.tilponline.org

TILP is a global organisation, owned by its members and directed by an elected Council.

Documents

LOCALISATION EVENTS: LOCALISATION IN PAKISTAN … · an insight into SDL's strategy on the importance of China as a global economy and key player in the field of localisation. For