November 2001

VOL. V, Issue 2This issue sponsored by:

ISSN No. 1393-5704

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INDUSTRY.news NOVEMBER 20012 LOCALISATION IRELAND

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

Editor: Reinhard SchälerAssistant editor: Raphaelle FraysseProduction editor: Catherine OsbornOrigination: Litho StudiosPublished by: Localisation Research Centre

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

Tel. +353-61-202783Fax +353-61-330876Email: LRC@ul.ieWeb http://lrc.csis.ul.ie

© 2001 Localisation Research Centre

PUBLISHER INFORMATION

Sponsorship and advertising

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

Inflated salaries no longer realisticTHE Irish-based recruitment company CPLreports that, in the current market, salaries areincreasing more slowly than in the past year.Managers are reluctant to offer positions tocandidates who may have inflated salary expec-tations.

However, candidates with the correct skillsfor certain vacancies are still in demand andreceiving competitive rates. There is an increas-ing focus on training and technology exposureas attractive benefits to be factored into offers,and candidates are expected to be willing towait for longer periods before large wageincreases are made.

One of the key skills required by companiesis not just technical competence but somethingas basic as good communication skills. In test-ing, engineering, project management or trans-lation, the ability to converse in a confidentand articulate manner is essential. Communi-cation skills are crucial to working in a teamand to dealing with customers.

Localisation demands a high level of tech-nical understanding. Skills such as C, C++, Javaand Java Script are in growing demand by com-panies. However, our ability to communicateshould not be overlooked and should be seenby potential candidates as an important factorin an employer’s final hiring decision.

Novell announces two new product releases

TWO product shipments last week showed dif-ferent aspects of Novell’s current product port-folio. The company reaffirmed its traditionalpositioning as a server platform vendor, whenit announced the general availability of Net-Ware 6. Novell also set out its credentials inweb security by delivering the iChain 2.0 accessmanagement product. This provides an iden-tity-based gatekeeper for platforms, applica-tions and data within and beyond anorganisation.

The new release enables users to combinetoken-based authentication with passwords,smart cards and digital certificates to createfine-grained access control systems at a cost of$10 per user.

Trados rolls out MultiTerm

SUCCESSFUL document management systemsand localisation services are built on good ter-minology databases, according to translationtechnology developer Trados. The companyclaims that its MultiTerm terminology man-agement solution has an installed base of morethan 50,000. It plans to deliver a new genera-tion of this product next month. MultiTermClient Server is not only designed to standardisethe terminology in an organisation’s documentsbut, Trados says, can also distribute this infor-mation throughout an enterprise at the clickof a button.

All the data structures in the new MultiTermare based on XML, and users will be able tosearch for words across several ‘termbases’.MultiTerm Client Server can be integrated intothe Trados Translator’s Workbench or linkedwith Microsoft Word.

Transware to create 230 jobs in Sligo

IRISH software company Transware is to cre-ate 230 jobs over the next five years as part ofa 10m. euro investment in its Sligo base. Theexpansion builds on the successful implemen-tation of a pilot operation set up by the com-pany in a former clothing factory in Sligo lastyear. The pilot, which already employs 60 peo-ple, was set up with the support of EnterpriseIreland, in a strategy meant to help Dublin-based companies locate in the regions. Tran-sware specialises in the localisation of eLearningsoftware and exports all its output. See its website at http://www.transwareplc.com

NetG Ireland wins national HR award

NETg Ireland, the Limerick e-learning com-pany, has received the Excellence Through Peo-ple Award. The award is Ireland’s nationalstandard for human resource development.NETg Ireland received the award in recogni-tion of its commitment to employee develop-ment in a wide range of areas, includingtraining and development, communication,performance appraisal and career planning.See http://www.netg.co.uk/research/limerick-inno.asp

New STAR product is a freedownload

THE STAR Group is now offering free soft-ware on the internet.

STAR’s new product is called TRANSITSATELLITE PE and is now available for all todownload by visiting the recently launchedwebsite at www.star-transit.com. PE stands forPersonal Edition, the latest member of the Tran-sit family of translation editor/translation mem-ory products.

Most interest is expected to come fromtranslation agencies drawing on an interna-tional network of freelance translators. Now

■ The recruitment spe-cialists at CPL adviselocalisation profession-als to adjust their salaryexpectations and focusinstead on training andtechnology exposurewhen assessing joboffers.

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

GET NOTICE FOR YOUR COMPANY

they can equip freelancers with professional,state-of-the-art translation technology at theclick of a button, and at no extra cost. The onlyoutlay is for TRANSIT Professional, withwhich (internal) project managers prepare —i.e. import and export — translation projectsfor freelance translators.

TRANSIT SATELLITE PE is a fully-func-tioning condensed version of the well-knownTransit tool. Tried and tested, it enables sim-ple access to state-of-the-art translation tech-nology. For further information, contacttransit@star-group.net

NOVEMBER 2001 COUNTRY.focus 3LOCALISATION IRELAND

GERMANY:

LOCATECH has spe-cialised exclusively inprofessional softwarelocalisation since 1993.In this process, teams

made up of IT specialists, linguistsand project managers convert tech-nically sophisticated software prod-ucts, websites, or E-commercesolutions into other languages.

Fifty IT specialists and localisa-tion experts work at Dortmund inaddition to a pool of approxi-mately 300 translators throughoutEurope. Most recently, Locatechplayed a significant role in thedevelopment of the new MicrosoftOffice XP. Large parts of the suc-cessor packet to the well knownOffice 2000 program werelocalised for markets in Germany,Italy, and France.

From Seattle to DortmundFrom the beginning, Locatech

has worked for the big names inthe software industry. The twofounders of Locatech, Dirk Löhnand Anette Schachtner, had bothworked previously at Microsoftheadquarters in the USA, where

they gained valuable experience insoftware localisation. Today, theDortmund company is an officialMicrosoft partner.

Locatech’s clients also includecompanies such as Cisco Systems,IBM, General Electric and HewlettPackard. “Internationally activesoftware companies can onlyremain successful in the long-termif they develop products that arewell adjusted to the needs of thetarget markets and that areaccepted by users in the same wayas products developed in their owncountries”, explains Matthias Cae-sar, Locatech’s Managing Director.

The European Economic Inter-

est Group (EEIG) employs 150professionals. Most of their orderscome from the USA, Ireland andGermany. To improve the service

to their customers abroad, Locat-ech has recently opened an officein Seattle. Together with four part-ner companies in Brussels, Paris,Bologna and Barcelona, Caesar hasestablished a EEIG. The LCJ EEIG,of which Matthias Caesar is alsoManaging Director, is the largestindependent localisation providerin Europe, with a total of about150 employees.

For further information, contactMatthias Caesar, Managing Direc-tor, Locatech, Dortmund, Ger-many. See the company website atwww.locatech.de.

Europe’s largest independent localisation service

provider is based in Germany. Locatech GmbH, a

Dortmund-based company, gets software ready

for globalisation. It is the largest independent

localisation service provider in Europe and has

played a significant role in the development of

Microsoft Office XP.

■ Anette Schachtner Dirk Löhn and Matthias Caesar with Locatech staff outsidetheir Dortmund headquarters.

Locatech thinks big

From the beginning,Locatech has worked

for the big names in thesoftware industry. The

two founders of Locatech, Dirk Löhn

and Anette Schachtner,had both worked previ-

ously at Microsoftheadquarters in the

USA, where they gainedvaluable experience in software localisation.Today, the Dortmund company is an official

Microsoft partner.

■ Full caption needed here AnetteSchachtner, Dirk Löhn and MatthiasCaesar.

SUMMER.school NOVEMBER 20014 LOCALISATION IRELAND

LRC summer schooldraws calls for encore

THE FIRST ever LRC InternationalLocalisation Summer School tookplace at the University of Limerick(11-16 June 2001). Close to 100participants took part in three

courses, with many specialised streams, pre-sented by 22 speakers.

The Foundation Course in Software Local-isation ran over two days. After a plenary ses-sion, the course offered three streams: projectmanagement, localisation engineering, andQA/testing.

The Advanced Course in Software Locali-sation also ran over two days. After anoverview of the opportunities offered by XML,the course offered advanced streams in the fol-lowing subjects: internationalisation, localisa-tion technology and localisation testautomation.

A one-day course on Localisation and Cul-tural Diversity introduced a new subject areafor localisers: the need to preserve culturaldiversity in the age of online courses, onlineinformation channels and online entertain-ment.

The high-tech labs of the Department ofComputer Science offered an almost ideal envi-ronment for the summer school. It was possi-ble to provide hands-on exercises in almost allthe individual streams, including project man-agement, engineering, test automation and spe-

cialised programmes and technology.Marking mid-term, the summer school took

off on a cruise on beautiful Lough Derghaboard the aptly named KU-e-too, a not so“luxury” cruiser with lots of atmosphere, live-folk entertainment and a few complimentarydrinks.

Feedback from the participants was excel-lent. Many are already planning to come backnext year. Although the LRC has not yet iden-tified a suitable date for the Localisation Sum-mer School in 2002, it is already planning theprogramme.

It is hoped that next year’s school can berun in conjunction with the Certified Locali-sation Professional programme, to be estab-

lished by the Institute of Localisation Profes-sionals (soon to be incorporated).

The LRC Summer School would not havebeen possible without the generous help of theUniversity of Limerick, especially the staff ofits Department of Computer Science and Infor-mation Systems.

The LRC International Summer School wassupported by the following companies:Lotus/IBM, Quality Automation, AlchemySoftware Development, VeriTest (a division ofLionbridge), ETP The Structured Project Man-agement Company, Vivendi Universal Inter-active Publishing (Havas Interactive), RWSGroup (translate.com), SimulTrans, Siebel Sys-tems, CPL, PASS Engineering and Microsoft.

LEFT: The campus at the University of Limerickwhere the LRC held its first annual summerschool for the training of localisation profes-sionals.

BELOW: Summer school participants enjoy a riverexcursion on the KU-e-too during a break.

Just wanted to write you anote to say thank you to yourteam for organising a greatsummer school. I learned agreat deal and made manycontacts. I look forward toaccessing the presentationfiles on your website whenthey become available.

— Cathie M. Hurley, Innovatia,CANADAJust a note from an enthusi-astic attendee to say con-gratulations on the summerschool. The quality of thepresentations on the weblocalisation stream was veryhigh and attendance was

definitely worthwhile. Thanksfor taking the time to organ-ise this.— Fiona Agnew, NovellThe summer school was excel-lent. We need more of this -how about a winter summerschool?— Jesus Maroto, Euro RSCG

What summer school participants said

NOVEMBER 2001 SUMMER.school 5LOCALISATION IRELAND

Top names from Ireland and abroad

ABOVE: Alchemy’s Tony O’Dowd chats with another participant.

BELOW: Anne Grills and Bert Esselink.

BOTTOM (from left): Florian Sachse, Ray Loughran and Hassan Eid.

TOP: Paul McBride

ABOVE: SeanO’Grady

LEFT: Yves Savourel

KEY.research NOVEMBER 20016 LOCALISATION IRELAND

PAT O’SULLIVAN’sresearch conducted atIBM was concernedwith investigating theprecise causes of trans-

lation bugs and developing a para-digm that allows translation to takeplace without bugs being introducedin the first place. The objective wastherefore to determine the extent towhich user interface translationcould be made a process of texttranslation only.

In particular, IBM wished toestablish whether localisation couldbe simplified to the extent that user

interface and functional bugs couldbe eliminated from localisation pro-jects, and if so, how this could beachieved and at what cost. In pur-suit of this objective a number ofstudies concerning software devel-opment and localisation methodsrelevant to user interface translationwere conducted. Then a set of local-isation laws was developed. Theselaws describe the rules that a fault-free system needs to obey so that itsuser interface can be translatedwithout introducing defects in itsoperation. Prototypes for an opti-mal user interface translation system

■ Pat O’Sullivanwas the 2000 win-ner of the presti-gious Best ThesisAward.

Pat O’Sullivan’s PhD Thesis “A Paradigm for

Creating Multilingual Interfaces” won the

LRC Best Thesis Award 2000. This four year

research project was proposed and spon-

sored in full by IBM. The project was super-

vised by Dr. Richard F.E. Sutcliffe of the

University of Limerick’s Computer Science

and Information Systems Department.

Pat O’Sullivan’s awardwinning localisation thesis covers new ground

NOVEMBER 2001 KEY.research 7LOCALISATION IRELAND

were conceived, each aiming to con-form to the laws. A full evaluationof the work concluded Pat’s study.

Optimising localisationIn essence, Pat’s PhD Thesis was

concerned with optimising the tech-nical process of localisation. He sur-mised that Software Localisation canbe defined as the process wherebysoftware is adapted to suit the needsof different world markets and sug-gests that in the last five or so years,localisation has become an impor-tant and integral part of the softwaredevelopment process. He feels this isbecause, in many countries, it is dif-ficult to sell computer hardware andsoftware that does not support theprevailing language and national cus-toms. Therefore, any large softwarecompany that already holds a sig-nificant share of the English languagemarket must localise its products andhence market them globally to growfurther.

Exploring localisation approaches at IBM

A comprehensive analysis was car-ried out at IBM to explore two fun-damental approaches to softwarelocalisation and localisation engi-neering that are relevant in user inter-face translation and softwarelocalisation.

The first approach was based onthe Architecture Model. This lookedat software from the perspective ofits underlying architecture andacknowledged that software locali-sation usually involved working withan inadequate legacy architecture.

As a result, the focus in localisationtended to be on changing the fun-damental architecture so that local-isation could be readily carried out.

The second approach, based onthe Process Model, was to develop asophisticated post hoc process tocounteract the deficiencies in the orig-inal architecture.

Approaches based on both mod-els are used in localisation. The spe-cific software development modeladopted depends on the exact natureand specifics of the project.

Approaches based on architecturegenerally prove to be time-consum-ing and expensive. As a result, theprocess model of software engineer-ing predominates in the localisationindustry mainly because softwaretranslation is a post-hoc activity.

The key stagesThere are a number of key stages

in the software localisation process.Analysis involves a thorough

investigation of the English productto assess areas like translatability,suitability for the various markets,product enabling and so on.

During Correction the product isre-engineered to address any prob-lems noted during Analysis.

The next phase is Translationwhere each graphical user interfaceelement is systematically translatedinto the target language.

Lastly there is Final Engineering.Here the translated project is testedand functional or user interface bugsare corrected.

During Translation, user interfacestrings are extracted from the soft-

ware using complex tools. Thestrings are then translated into thetarget language and then re-insertedinto the software.

The localisation process is cur-rently a destructive exercise, becausemany functional and user interfacebugs are typically introduced as anunwanted side effect.

There are many technical reasonsfor this, the main ones being inade-quate View-Model separation andlimitations or omissions in the appli-cation’s design.

Subsequently, research showedthat the process by which bugscaused by translation are correctedis complex, time consuming andexpensive.

Many overheads are incurred byfixing bugs. These include the timeto find bugs and capture their detailsin a bug tracking database, the timerequired to investigate the causes ofbugs and to decide how they shouldbe fixed, the time to implement solu-tions and conduct tests to establishthat the bugs no longer occur and soon. A typical localisation project mayinvolve solving thousands of bugsand this is what makes localisationso expensive.

Generic localisation processA number of studies were carried

out to establish the generic localisa-tion process used by most softwarelocalisation companies, the natureand types of localisation bugs causedby translation and the technical prob-lems caused by adapting productsthrough Correction.

How the localisation industry hassolved some of these problems wasexamined by looking at some of themore popular software localisationtools and studying attempts to dis-cover translation-related bugs beforetranslation.

Localisation tools and technologies

Significant software developmentadvances have been made in theareas of compilers and developmentenvironments, to assist in problemdomains such as product resourcearchitecture, text resourcing, userinterface abstraction, translation out-side of compile-and-link and so on.

While these advances make lifeeasier for software development engi-neers, it is not clear whether theyhave led to the best software engi-neering practices. Thus the studyinvestigated whether these tools andtechnologies actually helped thelocalisation process.

Continued on page 10

Real lifecasestudyStatistics from one ofIBM’s more complexclient/server applica-tions were evaluated.The objective here wasto understand thecauses for failure in areal life localisationproject and to put intoperspective the short-falls in a genericlocalisation process.The significance ofthese shortfalls interms of time andmoney was thenanalysed.

Pat says: “Having the correct design approach in the

initial releases seeds the foundation for success in

subsequent product releases. This has always been

seen as important by IBM and the significance of this

approach is clear to me as the mobile and wireless

market continues to grow and evolve.”

According to Pat: “A key challenge in the developmentof worldwide software to work with mobile devices isin ensuring that the disparate locale, character set,

local platform and device requirements are understoodand properly coded for and tested. IBM has continually

shown leadership in the ability to develop global applications and wishes to continue this leadership

into the evolving field of pervasive devices and wireless technologies.”

SPONSOR.close-up NOVEMBER 20018 LOCALISATION IRELAND

THE GLOBAL marketplace is pressuring allcompanies to shorten cycle times, lower costsand treat all markets equally with simulta-neous product releases and web site launches.What’s certain is that demand for localisation

services will outstrip supply, putting enormous chal-lenges and obstacles in the way of companies that wantto reach global markets economically and quickly.

Localisation workflowWhen you consider that most localisation activities

are fragmented geographically and spread across severalfunctional groups, the localisation workflow clearly pre-sents an opportunity to optimise resources within thesecompanies.

A typical localisation project involves several stepsthat extend far beyond the translation process itself. Itinvolves developers, localisers, project manager, review-ers, editors and of course translators. It’s seldom theseindividuals sit in close proximity to each other and amyriad of communication networks must be maintainedto keep data flowing efficiently and schedules coordi-nated correctly between these diverse and geographi-cally dispersed groups.

A typical localisation project may read like this. A Devel-opment company in the Silicon Valley may contract itstranslations to a localisation service provider in Dublin,who in turn will outsource the translation work to its in-

country freelance translators. Some of the subsequent test-ing may be done in their Indian or Hungarian test facilityand final acceptance of the translation is verified by thein-company QA team back at corporate HQ in the States.

Sounds implausible. In reality, this type of interconti-nental workflow happens every day in the localisation ser-vice industry. Good localisation service companies thrivein this environment, placing enormous value on their abil-ity to co-ordinate these activities for their customers.

However most localisation technology solutions havefocused on providing translation memory technology,which is used primarily by translators. While this hasenhanced the velocity of the actual translation process,these technologies seldom relieve the increasing chal-lenges of building, testing and engineering products andwebsite post-translation.

Stakeholders in the localisation workflowThe major stakeholders in localisation projects are

developers, localisers (who include project managersand QA specialists) and of course translators. However,most localisation technologies have overlooked therequirements of these “extended” groups. Building, test-ing and engineering an international product can be asmuch a bottleneck as translation used to be before theintroduction of good translation memory solutions. Theinternal engineering costs of localisation companies canmatch or in some cases exceed the actual cost of trans-

The demand for

translation services

is escalating

exponentially as

businesses pursue

globalisation

strategies.

According to IDC,

companies that do

globalise forecast

between 25% and

30% foreign revenue

in 2000 and 2001

respectively.

Previously only large

corporations

considered

globalisation, but

the emergence of

the internet — and

its effect on market-

ing and sales —

now means that

even small

companies can and

are becoming

global, putting even

more pressure on

the limited supply of

good translators.

Alchemy’s TONY

O’DOWD looks at

the efficiency of the

globalisation

process.

Is translation memory technology sufficientin reducing lead-time to market?

Globalisation

NOVEMBER 2001 SPONSOR.close-up 9LOCALISATION IRELAND

lation. Clearly any efficiencies achieved in this engi-neering process can yield significant savings in cost andcycle-time. Production line paradigm: localisation workflow

When Henry Ford instituted an integrated movingassembly line, costs fell by an order of magnitude, asdid the time to produce a motorcar. Henry Ford pio-neered the concept of specialisation in his factories, andthis is remarkably close to the quasi-production line thatoperates in localisation. However, where Ford had amoving assembly line with common tools used through-out the factory, the localisation business is more geo-graphically dispersed and fragmented in its use of tools.Consequently, it can waste time and resources.

Achieving greater globalisation efficiencyTo achieve greater efficiency in the localisation work-

flow, it’s important to identify with the requirements ofdevelopers, localisers and translators and recognise thesynergies these groups can create by using an integratedsolution for the entire localisation workflow.

Translators need translation memory, enterprise-wideglossary management tools and robust translation envi-ronments that are quick and simple to learn, with intu-itive user interfaces. They need secure editingenvironments that hide the complexity of underlying filestructures and tools that validate their translation atpoint of entry.

Localisers need tools that they can use in engineeringand testing. They need tools that automate the detec-tion and fixing of translation bugs. They need tools thatreduce the complexity of managing large numbers offiles. They needs tools that are flexible, open and easilyextended, as every project is different and requires con-stant change and new approaches.

Developers need tools that integrate directly into thelocalisation process. They need tools they can use in theirown build systems to automate the repetitive task ofbuilding and releasing multi-lingual versions of products.

While these three distinct groups of individuals areall working towards the same goal of releasing a trans-lated product, their needs are diverse. Although trans-lation memory technology is critical to the translator,other technologies are equally critical to the localisationengineer and QA tester.

Highly efficient localisation environmentsWhen Corel developed its in-house translation tech-

nology, CATALYST™, the company focused not onlyon providing a suite of tools for translators, but also fortheir internal localisation engineers and QA testers. Lotusand Microsoft had taken a similar approach. Since theintroduction of this technology, Corel has regularlyreleased five language versions of CorelDRAW withina week of their English release, making simultaneousrelease of products the norm rather than the exception.This level of productivity would have been unattainablehad they not deployed a solution that was used by trans-lators, engineers, testers and their own in-house projectmanagement team. By deploying the fully integratedlocalisation environment, CATALYST™, throughouttheir organisation, Corel achieved faster cycle-times,higher quality and lower costs.

Integrated localisation environments, similar toAlchemy CATALYST™, which span the entire localisa-tion workflow, providing a host of features that go farbeyond translation memory can deliver significant pro-ductivity gains and cost savings — gains that are essen-tial if companies are to maintain a presence in the fastmoving global marketplace of today.

About theauthorTony O’Dowd, BSc ComputerScience, previously GeneralManager and Executive VicePresident of CorelCorporation, has over 14years’ experience as asenior manager in the locali-sation industry. Before work-ing with Corel Corporation,he was Technology Managerfor Symantec Corporationand Lotus DevelopmentCorporation where heworked on the developmentof Lotus’s internal localisa-tion technologies andstrategies. Tony establishedAlchemy SoftwareDevelopment in November2000 and subsequentlyacquired the Corel CATALYSTproduct from CorelCorporation. Today Corel hasa 25% equity stake inAlchemy SoftwareDevelopment, which has itsEuropean Headquarters inDublin, Ireland.

● FASTER TIME-TO-MARKET — Time-to-market in most industries has dropped byan order of magnitude, from months toweeks, in some cases even days. Delaysin time-to-market are often due to ineffi-cient localisation processes and canreduce global revenue streams for multi-national organisations.

● eCOMMERCE — The emergence ofthe internet as an alternative channel-to-market has had enormous conse-quences for both small and large organ-isations. The benefits of lower costs,

greater global reach and fast responsetimes have created significant chal-lenges to these organisations in termsof operational efficiency and businessvelocity. To maximise a website’s appeal,it must be localised. In a recent studyby IDC, analysts pointed out that inter-national customers were three timesmore likely to purchase online if thesite was localised.

● SIMULTANEOUS PRODUCT RELEASES— The global market is pressurising com-panies to shorten cycles, lower costs and

to treat all countries equally. This requiresmultilingual products and websites to beavailable at the same time as its originalEnglish counterpart.

● GLOBALISATION — The fundamentalshift in the global markets over the pastten years is one of mass production tomass customisation. International mar-kets demand culturally adapted productsand services. Companies will only thrivein these environments if they think global,but act local. Fundamental to this is anefficient localisation process.

Why do global organisations needgreater globalisation efficiency?

n efficiency?

KEY.research NOVEMBER 200110 LOCALISATION IRELAND

Continued from page 7Prototype development

In his work Pat considered fourprototypes. One of these was theadoption of an architectureapproach. The others considered aprocess approach.

The former fits with establisheduser interface models to the extentthat an architecture is proposedwhere the presentation, dialoguecontrol and application interfacemodules are separately com-partmentalised and the methodsthat each module exposes aredesigned to carefully protect andrestrict access to the user interfacedata.

This is achieved by designing asystem that addresses a number ofconcerns regarding user interfacetranslation, and specifically consid-ers the need to address a problemwhere a running application canhave unrestricted access to and makeassumptions about its user interfaceelements.

Process model is key to improvements

However, acknowledging thatsoftware localisation usually involvesworking with an inadequate legacyarchitecture (and that architecturalchanges of this kind are complex,time consuming and expensive) moreattention was given to a processmodel approach.

The focus of efforts in localisationcompanies tends to concentrate onprocess-related improvements. This

required a careful look at disparatelocalisation processes and theirweaknesses, after which a set of thekey concerns affecting them all wasidentified.

Localisation rulesSubsequently, a set of rules (laws)

was developed to contain these con-cerns, and existing localisation solu-tions were modified in a processcontext.

Each prototype was measured interms of how well it met its goals.The ramifications of each prototypefor the generic localisation processwere also fully considered.

RecommendationsSo f twar e p roduc t s be ing

localised for release in global mar-kets are subjected to considerabletesting to detect and correct prob-lems that translations may cause.This is a widespread practiceamong companies that localise theirown products. Such testing is costly

in at least three separate ways.First, there is the cost of employ-

ing staff during the engineering. Sec-ond, lengthy engineering cyclescompromise the commercial advan-tages of speed to market. Third,problems discovered during locali-sation engineering can require re-engineering efforts that makeproduct releases late.

This research has shown thatthere is no inherent need in localisa-tion to modify the source code of asoftware product. To perform thesame level of quality assurance test-ing on localised versions as per-formed on the base US product is totest more than is needed.

The ideas and approaches takenprovide great opportunities forreducing the localisation engineer-ing costs associated with functionaland user interface bugs introducedby translation. A number of recom-mendations for solving the prob-lems of user interface layout arealso made. However, further workis required to implement these fully.

Pat works as a Principal Engineerwith IBM’s International MobileComputing Group. While he hasworked in several product develop-ment roles with IBM for almostseven years, his current focus is inensuring that the software IBMdevelops to interact with mobiledevices is designed to address theneeds of the greater world market aswell as the need for cost effectivelocalisation. These mobile devicesinclude various WAP Phones,PalmPilots,WinCEs, Pocket PCs andPsion devices.

“There are many aspects of the localisation and development challenge that are greatly under-

estimated outside the localisation industry. There aremany opportunities for other localisation research projects in the area of user interface translation,

application design, user interface layout, view-modelseparation, thin client systems, natural language

generation, user interface abstraction, establishedcoding and development practices, etc.”

Pat sees therole of the LRCas “an impor-

tant conduit tocommunicatingthe diversity of

the variouslocalisation chal-

lenges andencouraging

research in thefield of softwareengineering andlocalisation”.

Processes for savingtime and money?

■ Pat O’Sullivan believesthat inheriting inadequatelegacy architecture leads to anecessary emphasis on theprocess method.

NOVEMBER 2001 INDUSTRY.workshop 11LOCALISATION IRELAND

Andy Way, Senior Lecturer, Schoolof Computer Applications, Dublin

City University

THIS Example-Based MachineTranslation Workshop (part of MT-Summit VIII, in Santiago de Com-postela, Spain, 18th September2001) was organised by Michael

Carl (IAI, Saarbrücken) and myself. There were75 participants, which far exceeded theexpected number. This shows how importantthe current focus on corpus-based translationresearch is perceived to be. If further proof wereneeded, there was also a workshop atEACL/ACL in Toulouse, on Data-Driven MT(July, 2001), as well as a session on Large-scaleMT Applications at TALN-01, in Tours (July,2001).

Content of papersEight papers were presented at the EBMT

workshop in Santiago. These can be classifiedas follows:

● two philosophical papers, in which thecharacteristics of EBMT systems were debated;

● six technical papers, in which particularsystems were described.

After the opening remarks made by theworkshop co-chairs, the first of the two philo-sophical papers was given by Davide Turcatoand Fred Popowich (of Gavagai TechnologyInc., in Canada). Turcato and Popowich arguedthat linguistically principled approaches toEBMT significantly overlap with other lin-guistically principled non-EBMT approaches.That is, two approaches can be regarded assynonymous if they use the same knowledgein the same way.

Harold Somers (CCL, UMIST, Manchester)then presented the second philosophical paper.He examined EBMT from the perspective ofCase-based Reasoning (CBR), the idea beingto see whether this firmly established AI tech-nique could provide the relatively newer EBMTparadigm with new insights into the solutionof the problems of translation.

The system descriptions were then presented.These too could be classified on two scales:from knowledge rich to knowledge poor onthe one hand, and whether they focused more

on the working phase of the system or thelearning phase.

My own paper presented my LFG-DOTmodels of translation, which combine the lin-guistic knowledge from the syntactic theoryLexical-Functional Grammar with the proba-bilistic language models of Data-Oriented Pars-ing.

My work shows that, unlike other EBMTapproaches, LFG-DOT does not suffer fromthe well known problem of Boundary Friction.

Reinhard Schäler (University of Limerick)then outlined the ideas behind his proposal fora Phrasal Lexicon, suggesting (like Turcato andPopowich) that this might be a bridge betweentranslation memories and EBMT systems.

Kevin McTait (CCL, UMIST, Manchester)presented an approach to EBMT that operatesby extracting translation patterns from analigned bilingual corpus using the relativelylow level technique of string matching. The

patterns extracted resemble transfer rules to acertain extent, but with fewer constraints.

Ralf Brown (LTI, Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity, Pittsburgh) combined two techniques fromprevious work: namely, the induction of gram-mars from (monolingual and bilingual) unla-belled text and the use of clustering techniquesin EBMT to convert translation examples intotemplates. Brown showed in a preliminaryexperiment that the amount of training textrequired for translation from French to Eng-lish can be reduced in this way by a factor of12.

Michael Carl (IAI, Saarbrücken) presentedan algorithm for the generation and filteringof structurally analogous translation grammarsfrom treebanks. He showed that the inductionof such grammars can clarify meanings as wellas correcting bracketing errors.

Finally, Stephen Richardson presented jointwork with Arul Menezes (both MicrosoftResearch, Richmond WA) on automaticallyextracting transfer mappings from bilingualcorpora. Their algorithm was shown to sig-nificantly improve the quality of the mappingsextracted by using a small alignment grammarin addition to the usual alignment techniques.

Other papersThere were other papers in the general pro-

gramme on EBMT systems, as well as exploit-ing translation memories at a sub-sententiallevel (cf. Schäler, above). The workshop endedwith a general discussion session on EBMTinspired by many of the ideas heard through-out the day. Given the level of interest that theworkshop generated, two publishers expressedenthusiasm for a book on EBMT based on theworkshop proceedings. It is hoped that thiswill be published in 2002.

Finally, the workshop organisers expressedtheir wish that an EBMT-2 Workshop mightbe held some time in the future, possibly at thenext MT-Summit in New Orleans in 2003.

For more information, email: away@compapp.dcu.ie; phone: +353-1-7005644; fax:+353-1-7005442 or see the websites athttp://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~away/ andhttp://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~away/EBMT.html.

EBMT workshop inSpain attracts awide attendance

■ The pilgrimage town of Santiago deCompostela, with its famous cathedral, formedthe backdrop for the EBMT workshop.

09:30 RegistrationOpening of the Localisation Industry Exhibition and Showcase10:00 Workshop I: The Localisation Teaching andTraining Network

This workshop will provide a platform for organisationsinvolved in teaching and training localisation relatedcourses and programmes to exchange their knowledgeand experience in the area. The aim is to take stock ofthe courses available today, compare different coursestructures and outlines, and to consider the establish-ment of the Localisation Teaching and Training Net-work. This workshop is aimed at private and publicorganisations providing training and teaching pro-grammes and their (potential) clients.Confirmed contributors: Martine Baetens (Belgium),Sharon O’Brien (Ireland), Annette McElligott (Ireland),Tony Hartley (UK) and Helen Wybrants (Ireland)

14:00 Workshop II: Localisation Research andResources

This workshop will provide an overview of currentresearch activities and available resources relevant tolocalisation. Needs of the localisation will be outlinedand matched against current activities and availableresources. This workshop is aimed at localisation pro-fessionals who would like to encourage the develop-ment of research activities relevant to their industry,researchers who would like to present the results oftheir work to the profession, and the providers of toolsand resources.Confirmed contributors: Pat O’Sullivan (Ireland),Richard Sutcliffe (Ireland), Reinhard Schäler (Ireland)

17:00 Meeting of the LRC Industrial Advisory Board(by invitation only)19:00 The Annual Localisation Industry Dinner(Castletroy Park Hotel)

Thursday, 15 November 2001 Friday, 16 November 2001

LRC.events NOVEMBER 200112 LOCALISATION IRELAND

Localisation 2001 — The 6th Annual Localisation Conference and Industry Showcase organised by the LRC

e Localisation15 – 16 November 2001 ● University of Limerick ● Ireland

Workshops ● Plenary Sessions ● Industry Exhibition and ShowcaseThe Annual Localisation Industry Dinner ● 5th Annual LRC Best Thesis

Award sponsored by Symantec Ireland

Programme overviewAll events will take place in the Computer Science Building at the University of Limerick, unless stated otherwise.

08:00 Registration08:30 Welcome and Official Opening

Prof. Kevin Ryan, VP Academic, University of Limerick08:45 Session 1: eLocalisation applied – the SpecialOlympic Games in Ireland

Wojtek Kosinski, European Technology Director (Berlitz GlobalNET)Peter Reynolds, Manager Development Team (Berlitz GlobalNET)

10:00 Session 2: Multilingual content - workflow &transaction automation

Chair: Sharon O’Brien (Dublin City University)Penelope Kenny, Director (Emergent Management Consulting Ltd)Henri Broekmate, Vice President, Product Developmentand Marketing (Lionbridge)Jaap van der Meer, President (Alpnet)Tony O’Dowd, President (Alchemy Software Development)

13:30 Session 3: Integration and interoperability oftechnology

Chair: Brigid Corby (VistaTEC)Ian Dunlop, Vice President, Product Development (NOVELL)Paul Quigley, formerly Director Tools Development (ORACLE WPDG)Bill Looby, Architect - Global Web Development ToolsGroup (IBM)

15:30 Session 4: eContent – a new challenge?Chair: Angelika Haas (Bowne Global Solutions)Reinhard Schäler, Director, (LRC, UL)Billy Mills, Content Group (NetG)Julia MacLauchlan, Senior Director, InternationalProduct Services (Microsoft Corporation)

17:00 Close

NOVEMBER 2001 LRC.miscellany 13LOCALISATION IRELAND

The LRC Industrial Advisory Board meets at least twice a year.Members of the Board recognise the importance of the LRC's activi-ties for the localisation industry and support its aims and objectives.They assist the LRC in its efforts and advise it on their requirements.The Board's chairperson is Alan Barrett (Lotus Development). He waselected at the Board's first meeting in December 1999.

LRC Industrial Advisory Board

THE LOCALISATION Research Centreis one of the world’s leading intelli-gence, technology and educationalcentres for the localisation industry.It was established in 1995 at Uni-versity College Dublin under theIrish government and EuropeanUnion funded Technology CentresProgramme as the LocalisationResources Centre. When the centremoved to the University of Limer-ick in 1999, it merged with UL’sCentre for Language Engineeringand was renamed the LocalisationResearch Centre. The LRC is ownedby UL. It has a director, facultymembers and full-time research staff.Its Industrial Advisory Board repre-sents a large section of the Irish local-isation industry. The LRC issupported by UL, subscribers to itsservices and Enterprise Ireland. Its main areas of research are:

Industry Intelligence● Localisation Exchange Point(http://lrc.csis.ul.ie)● Localisation Ireland● Yellow Pages● Contact Database● Surveys and industry studies

Education and Training● Graduate Diploma / MSc inSoftware Localisation● Professional Certification● Tools seminars and devel-oper's club● Guest lectures

Technology● Translation technologies● Test automation● Tools evaluation and certifica-tion● Annual Best Thesis Award

LRC tools repository andlibraryTHE LRC MAINTAINS a reposi-tory of localisation tools and asmall, specialised library for mem-bers of the LRC. Visits to the LRC’stools repository and library can bearranged by appointment.

The LRC needs support fromtools developers and publishers toensure the relevance of the toolsrepository and library. Please con-tact LRC@ul.ie should you wishto contribute to the developmentof the LRC’s localisation toolsrepository and library.

The LRC and itsfunctions

Alan Barrett Director of Technology, International ProductDevelopment, Lotus Development

Jonathan Dempsey Director, Sales, ETPIan Dunlop VP, Product Development, NovellMervyn Dyke Managing Director, VistaTecEwald Gehrmann Director Business Development,

Northwest Europe, TRADOSSeamus Gallen National Software DirectorateJames Grealis Director EMEA Localisation, SymantecWendy Hamilton Vice President Business Development,

Bowne Global SolutionsMartin Hynes Senior Analyst, FORFÁSBrian Kelly Vice President, BerlitzJohn Malone Director Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd and

Group Manager Localisation Outsourcing SBC 5Paul McBride GM, VeriTest (Division of Lionbridge)Patti McCann Director of Localisation,

Business Tools Division, MicrosoftDave MacDonald ConsultantMichael O'Callaghan Vice President, OracleAnthony O'Dowd President, Alchemy SoftwareKevin Ryan VP Academic Affairs, ULReinhard Schäler Director, LRCGerry Carty General Manager, Havas Interactive IrelandAidan Collins Global Localisation Manager, Nortel NetworksDavid Murphy Director Localisation, Siebel Systems

DEAR REINHARD: Kudos for your article on change in the locali-sation services industry. I agree with DavidMacDonald when he says new technologies formanaging localisation workflow are changingthe way we work. But, if I may, I would like toclarify a few details behind the general state-ments made in the article.Like Idiom and GlobalSight, Lionbridge is infact bringing workflow technology to market aspart of the Lionbridge Globalization Platform(LGP). Unlike Idiom and GlobalSight,Lionbridge already has robust translation mem-ory technology: ForeignDesk, which has beenused commercially since 1995. Although theapplication may lack some bells and whistlesfound in Trados Workbench, for instance, itsactual utility from a localisation engineeringand language management standpoint is stillunmatched by any other tool. This is due to theunderlying architecture of the software itself —its ability to handle massive projects, natively

support any file type (using its DDL Workshop,over 150 formats have already been con-quered), and to link translators in projectteams across the globe. In its current pointrelease (version 5.6), the application set hasbeen further expanded. It now ships asLionLinguist, the language management com-ponent of LGP.Another difference is that, in the Lionbridgetechnology strategy, web content is notassumed. Each LGP component handles printdocumentation and software localisation pro-jects as readily as web content. Our approachis to

1. automate connectivity with sourcelanguage repositories; 2. automate localisation workflowmanagement; 3. incorporate memories, MT, and terminology management; 4. provide a collaboration portal fordistributed localisation teams.

So David is right when he says that technologyis the next frontier. As it was the last. Projectmanagement using fax machines was massive.Adoption of word processing (if my memoryserves me, we called it "direct translation")was revolutionary. Adding translation memorywas huge. This year and next, automatingtransactions is the big thing. After that, tech-nology interoperability and integration acrossthe value chain will be our primary focus.But technology is never a silver bullet.Lionbridge continues to believe in people mostof all. These changes are productivity inflectionpoints -- localisation technology helps us, thelocalisation professionals, do a better job mak-ing our clients happy and successful. We are,as your article correctly states, the localisationservices industry.

Cheers, HenriHENRI BROEKMATE, LIONBRIDGE

(P.S. Thanks for doing a great job with theLRC!)

Letter to the editor

LRC.news NOVEMBER 200114 LOCALISATION IRELAND

For further information on positions available contactLISA HOWARDHOWARD RECRUITMENTWigmore House132 Lr Baggot StDublin 2

Tel: 01-676 3880Fax: 01-676 3881Email: howardr@iol.ieor via web pagewww.howardrecruitment.com

New faces at the LRCThe LRC welcomes two new staff members:RAPHAELLE FRAYSSE has recently joined the LRC. Raphaelle

will be looking after the timely publication of LocalisationIreland. Should you wish to contribute to or advertise inLocalisation Ireland, Raphaelle will be pleased to provideyou with the necessary information. Should you considersponsorship of a future issue of Localisation Ireland,please contact Raphaelle.Fraysse@ul.ie

GERALDINE HARRAHILL is the new administrator of the LRC.She will deal with all queries, suggestions and requestsreaching the LRC.

Resources and materialThe LRC has recently published the following material, which canbe ordered from the LRC. (The LRC charges a fee for this service.For details see http://lrc.csis.ul.ie, telephone +353-61-202881, oremail lrc@ul.ie.)● The thesis by the winner of the LRC 2000 Best Thesis Award, PatO’Sullivan (Lotus/IBM), is now available on CD-ROM.● LRC International Localisation Summer School 2001 — all pre-sentations are now available on DC-ROM.

LRC UPDATE: STAFFAND RESOURCES