LTC Cleaves Software from Language Services to Form New Company

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Global Watchtower

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Posted by Benjamin B. Sargent on April 14, 2009 in the following blogs: Technology, Supplier Business Issues, Best Practices, Business Globalization
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For years, we’ve suggested that SDL would benefit from splitting its technology solutions groups from its services business. Finally, someone is listening. Only it’s not SDL, it’s LTC. Language Technology Centre was an early translation management system (TMS) developer that released its LTC Organizer product back in 1998. In recent years, it developed a new piece of technology from the ground up, issuing LTC Worx in September 2007. Today, the company announced it has broken out its software development organization as a new company with a distinct mission. The details:

The new entity, Agile Web Solutions, Ltd operates from the UK, with 10 full-time employees housed on a separate floor but in the same building as LTC in Kingston-upon-Thames, southwest of London.

In March 2009, the company hired Phil McConnell, a bona fide software executive, to manage engineering. McConnell worked for a dozen years in IT consulting, and then for the last decade managing IT departments in various financial services firms, but with one previous stint as CTO of a software startup.

LTC will license Worx through the same partnership program open to other LSPs, "on an equal footing." The software company will broaden its product lineup to include additional products not specifically targeted at the language industry. Four new product introductions are planned for the coming year. The new company also announced new service offerings, such as custom software development.

We see this announcement as positive news. While a new legal entity won’t change the corporate culture overnight, it does signal a shift from the world of "mom and pop" business operations to a professional organization led by a seasoned executive. Tobias Rinsche, the LTC executive we spoke with about the announcement, told us that the association of the Worx software application with LTC, a language services provider, led to conflicting and confusing brand messages.

Here is how we see the changes affecting Worx as a translation management system (TMS):

In recent years, LTC struggled with product delays and personnel changes in its technology group. With today’s announcement, the company enters a new phase, better able to meet its development commitments.

Customers took a cautious approach to LTC Worx in its first year, which is typical of any version 1.0 product launch. Things picked up last fall, and Rinsche tells us sales have turned brisk since January. The product is now in release 1.3. With version 1.5 due out later in 2009, we expect Worx to reach parity with other business-type TMS applications already on the market (see “Translation Management Systems,” Sep09).

LSPs are the primary market for the Worx product. The new corporate entity promises "peace of mind" to LSP user base, especially those using the SaaS model where LSP data had been hosted on LTC servers. Those servers will now be owned by the new entity, Agile Web Solutions.

For now, LTC will remain Agile's only sales channel, but the new company will begin to hire and build its own sales team. Half of its sales are in Europe, and now half are in the U.S. While European customers still primarily install Worx on-premise, U.S. buyers prefer adopting via the SaaS model.

On a final note, Agile is making available a localization kit for partners wishing to localize Worx for their markets. This strategy suggests that Agile, like its business-type TMS competitor XTRF in Poland, will fight for market share in smaller countries where LSPs seek effective, low-cost tools – and there is less competition from the likes of Beetext, Plunet, and and SDL.

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