Multilizer Finishes 2005 on an Up Note

Article Details

Global Watchtower

Common Sense Advisory Blogs

Posted by Donald A. DePalma on January 11, 2006 in the following blogs: Translation and Localization, Web Globalization, Business Globalization, Technology, Interpreting, Market Data, Global Marketing, Best Practices, Supplier Business Issues
Pages \| \|

Earlier this month we wrote that we "we don't expect to hear from Finland-based Multilizer, which reorganized earlier this year and has disappeared from the radar screens." Following that comment, we heard from Niko Papula, the new managing director of Finland-based Multilizer, about the company, its reorganization in 2005, and plans moving forward. The company went bankrupt a few months ago, dipping below the radar during its reorganization.

Papula told us that the Multilizer business is now part of Rex Partners Oy, an amalgam of small companies of which he is the CEO. Rex had previously worked with Multilizer, but was not an expert localization supplier. The company has already enhanced Multilizer, last month announcing direct product support for Delphi 2006, the Windows development environment on which Multilizer itself is built.

We asked Papula about the impact of the reorganization on the thousands of customers referenced at Multilizer's website, some of whom had alerted us in July 2005 to the financial problems at the company and the dispersal of the founding team. Papula contended that customers will be better off with the new management than with the founders because Rex can bring additional resources to development, marketing, and sales.

What can we expect from the next version of Multilizer? Papula says that for now Rex will continue development per the original founders' plans. He told us that "we will rethink the company strategy as soon as we know the business well enough. So far we have made only small adjustments and put more resources in our support/consultation functions."

Competitors claimed they hadn't seen Multilizer as of late, but Papula says they've been quite busy learning the business and technology, a major undertaking since only 1 of the original team remained. Papula admitted that "we were quite surprised that we reached the old sales numbers in December; much ahead of our schedule."

So what should we expect from the Finns? In the localization engineering tool market they compete with a few other companies, including Alchemy, PASS, Schaudin, and WizArt. Each will argue that its technology is much better than the others, but at the end of the day, the battle will come down to marketing and sales. Some rely heavily on channels such as LSPs, while others depend on their own sales force. We believe there is a lot of potential demand in the software vendor and application development market, but none of these firms has achieved a critical sales mass to reach its market potential.

Categories