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Common Sense Advisory Blogs
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TMS Contenders Jockey for Position
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This week, suppliers of translation management systems issued a flurry of press releases as they raced for position in this evolving market segment. Across reaffirmed its pledge to remain independent, while Lionbridge renewed its commitment to the sector with a new program and new hires. SDL and Welocalize also weighed in with news before most people shut down their brains for the holidays.
Not coincidentally, most of these announcements were timed for the Gilbane content-focused conference in Boston and the upcoming LISA gathering in Dublin.
- Across puts its money where its mouth is. In July, the company joined several translation automation providers in proclaiming their independence from LSPs. This week, Across laid out an unambiguous promise to any LSP who buys its software: If Across merges with or is acquired by an LSP within five years of the purchase, the company will refund all license fees paid through 2009 -- and the buyer retains the Across licenses. Across hopes to benefit from LSP interest in independent technology suppliers.
- Lionbridge LEAPs into a more open stance. Lionbridge announced a new top-gun in its product management organization, Yvonne Cekel. A veteran with experience in both language technology and hosted software services, Cekel will oversee the Lionbridge Early Adopter Program. LEAP aims to expand use of the company's flagship Logoport translation environment to the other language vendors of existing customers. The program offers a 30- to 90-day trial for proof-of-concept testing at no cost.
- SDL nails new trophies to the wall. SDL trumpeted its recent awards (three) for technology and innovation. While awards can be easy to come by for growing companies of a certain size, we view it as positive for the entire industry when any LSP gets a nod from outside, as is the case here.
- TDC remains in stealth mode. Translations.com is quietly rolling out Project Director2, the updated project management component of the GlobalLink platform. Project Director2 now includes the company's vendor management module. That's a major feature upgrade and should increase GlobalLink's ranking when we update our TMS assessments next year.
- Welocalize bites into content. Welocalize pegged GlobalSight's future CMS connectivity to Clay Tablet's multi-point translation integration software, stating that its open-source TMS is now "open to any source." As Clay Tablet gains more and more systems within its orbit, routing translation work to multiple translation environment (or from multiple content and authoring applications) gets easier.
No CMS or TMS stands alone -- most companies have more than one "strategic" solution for these functions. But within this heterogeneity of content-centric systems, it will be interesting to watch the coming war of the (content) worlds to see whether TMS ends up challenging mainline CMS as the real system of record for global enterprise content. In a future Quick Take, we'll look at the concept of federation in a world of high-value, brand-significant, multilingual content.
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Keywords: Global content management, Open-source translation technologies, Translation management systems, Translation technologies |
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