Reinhard Schäler, SLIG’s chairperson overthe past three years, told delegates at SLIG‘98 that since 1995 the Localisation

Resources Centre (LRC) had provided the admin-istrative support infrastructure for the organisa-tion. Funding for the LRC under Forbairt’sTechnology Centres Programme was, however,coming to an end, and SLIG had to find differentways to finance its activities, up to now heavilysubsidised by the Centre.

It was therefore proposed to introduce a corpo-rate membership fee, in addition to the existingmembership fee structure. This should allow forcorporations to contribute to the financial aspectsof SLIG in a formal way as opposed to the infor-mal way that companies and others had made sig-nificant contributions to SLIG to date.

The organisation’s agm (7 and 9 October) andits more recent egm, hosted by Sun at Dublin’s Dav-enport Hotel on 27 November, accepted this pro-posal. In addition, a number of key decisions tosecure the future of SLIG were taken, among them:

● The SLIG Committee will be limited to a maxi-mum of six members, to include three elected

Industry news 2

Company Close-up: Sykes 4

SLIG ‘98: Special conference review 6

Working smart with graphics 8

News from industry workshops 8

More workshops 9

Tools review: Expideditor and

Toolproof 10

Profile: Lotus’ Ian Dunlop 11

East meets West 12

SLIG and the LRC 12

Contents

This issue is sponsored by:

December 1998 Vol. 2/Issue 4

ISSN: 1393-5704

SLIG elects newcommittee

At its recent annual meetingand extraordinary generalmeeting the SoftwareLocalisation Interest Grouptook a number of key decisions to bring it into thenext millennium.

Edward Johnson (Prolingua) and Annie Zaenen(Xerox) at SLIG ‘98.

▼

TOP: Bróna Collins introduces her award-win-ning PhD at SLIG ‘98. BOTTOM: Roberto Cencioni (DGXII) following theproceedings

▼

Date for your diaryTHE Fifth Framework Programme & Human Language Technologies — A Global ViewDATE:

Wednesday, 27th January 1999VENUE:

The Auditorium, University Industry Centre,University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.REGISTRATION:

There is no attendance fee but participants areasked to register by emailing euromapinfo@dylan.ucd.ie. Alternatively, tele-phone +353-1-706 7898. Registrations must bereceived by 20th January 1999.

officers, i.e. chair, secretary and treasurer, as wellas three formally elected ordinary members;

● SLIG will draw up a formal Constitution beforethe end of May 1999;

● SLIG will contract Adapt Localisation Consul-tants (company spin off of the LRC) to admin-ister SLIG, initially for 98/99.

SLIG also elected a new Committee with JohnRowley (Corel) as chair, Shiera O’Brien (ALPNET)as treasurer, and Seán Ó Drisceoil (CTS) as secre-tary. Anna Brady (Independent Consultant), LisaSkov Jensen (VistaTEC) and Len Smith (Symantec)were elected as ordinary members of the 98/99 SLIGCommittee.

Reinhard Schäler

The LRC wishes you aHappy Christmas and aprosperous New Year!

Training deal signedCBT Systems, a subsidiary of CBT Group plc, aleading provider of interactive education softwarefor information technology training, has signed atwo-year contract with VistaTEC Ltd, the Irish-owned software localisation company. The sign-ing of this contract enables CBT Systems todeliver a computer-based training programme toover half of VistaTEC’s employees.

This is the first time CBT Systems has signed acontract with an Irish-owned software localisa-tion company to provide interactive IT training.VistaTEC will use the training from CBT Systemsto deliver skills to more than 40 of its 70+employees. Using CBT Systems’ certificationlevel courseware, these localisation engineers willbecome industry-certified in technologies likeJava, Internet development, Lotus Notes, VisualBasic and Windows NT within the next six to 12months.

“We are investing in ongoing skills develop-ment for our engineering professionals, which inturn, allows us to deliver a focused engineeringservice to our key clients,” said Mervyn Dyke,Managing Director, VistaTEC Limited.

VistaTEC has a strong pool of graduate engi-neers with localisation experience from some ofthe world’s key software publishers and hasannounced employment figures of more than 70people in its first year.

Filter Pack announcedInternational Translation and Publishing Ltd(ITP) and TRADOS Ireland Ltd have announcedthe immediate availability of the ITP Filter Pack.The ITP Filter Pack is a suite of mark-up utilitiesthat enables the translation of text in PageMaker,QuarkXPress, Ventura and HTML formats usingthe TRADOS Translator’s Workbench. The ITPFilter Pack was developed by ITP to enhance thetranslation process of files created using thesepackages. Its release marks the continuing closeworking relationship between ITP and TRADOS.

The ITP Filter Pack will be distributed byTRADOS Ireland Ltd as a companion utility tothe TRADOS Translator’s Workbench. The TRA-

INDUSTRYNEWS

2 LOCALISATIONIRELAND http://lrc.ucd.ie December 1998

VistaTEC, CBT

Berlitz makes Polish dealBerlitz International has announced the acqui-

sition through its Polish subsidiary ofWarsaw-based translation and localisation ser-vices provider, Delta Software.

Established in 1990, Delta specialises in theprovision of software localisation, translation andtechnical support services to the InformationTechnology industry. Over the years, Delta hasreceived special recognition from its customersincluding winning the Microsoft Strategic PartnerAwards in 1994 and 1995 and being nominatedas a Microsoft Solution Provider in 1996.

Working with industry-leading companies,such as Microsoft, Intergraph, Hewlett-Packardand Compaq, Delta’s areas of expertise include:software localisation and translation; softwareengineering and quality assurance; translationand desktop publishing and technical teleservices.

BERLITZ Key deal stengthens technology

ITP, TRADOS

DOS Translator’s Workbench is the de facto stan-dard in translation memory technology, with over15,000 licences in daily use across the globe bycustomers, including Fortune 500 companies andfreelance translators.

Following this release, TRADOS has alsoannounced the TRADOS Font Mapper for Inter-leaf, a companion application to The S-Tagger2.0 for Interleaf, allowing users to change thefonts in an Interleaf document, which has beentranslated either from or into Japanese, to thefonts used in the language that the file has beentranslated into. This product is being suppliedfree to users of The S-Tagger 2.0 for Interleaf.

Theatre symposiumscheduled for the newyearBowne Global Solutions (Ire-land) have become patrons ofthe Pan Pan Theatre Com-pany’s 3rd Dublin Interna-tional Theatre Symposium atthe Samuel Beckett Centre inJanuary 1999.

Mr Ken Behan, Director ofEuropean Sales & Marketingsaid that Bowne Global Solu-tions and the Pan Pan TheatreCompany were similar in thatboth companies place consid-erable emphasis on individuallanguages and cultures.

“We were attracted to 3rdDublin International TheatreSymposium as it will look atthe many different approachesto theatre and the culturalcontext in which it works indifferent countries. We havethe same aim with the soft-ware we adapt and translatefor our clients. Bowne GlobalSolutions place a strongemphasis on the cultural con-text in the 30 different lan-guages we translate and thecountries where software isused,” Ken said.

Michal Dembinski, founder and general man-ager of Delta — who will continue as the generalmanager — attributes the company’s continuedsuccess and growth to its close ties with the acad-emic communities in Warsaw: “These ties haveenabled us to acquire the highly skilled and tech-nically competent resources needed to meet thechanging demands of our customers. Being basedin Warsaw, we have access to the latest intelecommunications technology, including ISDN,leased lines and satellite links.”

Speaking enthusiastically of the acquisition,Brian Kelly, vice president of Berlitz’s WesternEuropean Division said: “We are delighted withthis development in Poland. Delta represents astrategic addition to Berlitz’s international net-work as Poland is an important market for ourclients in the information technology industry.”

BOWNE

Eureopean test centre opened to speedtime to market

LioNBRIDGE has opened a new EuropeanTest Centre in Ireland to help global IT compa-nies speed time to market.

The facility was opened by Tánaiste MaryHarney, LioNBRIDGE CEO Rory Cowan,and

Mr Brian Kelly (left) and Mr Michael Dembinski▼

Mr Ken Behan with Actor Charles Kelly from Pan Pan Theatre.▼

LioNBRIDGE

The symposium will include talks, workshopsand performances from eight leading theatre com-panies from Belgium, Ireland, Poland, Sweden,Italy, Denmark, Japan and USA. It will take placeat the Samuel Beckett Centre, Dublin, 16-19 Jan-uary, 1999.

INDUSTRYNEWS

LOCALISATION IRELAND is the quarterly publicationof the Localisation Resources Centre. It is distrib-uted free of charge to professionals working in thelocalisation industry. Please notify the centre if youor one of your colleagues would like to receiveLocalisation Ireland regularly.

CONTRIBUTORS: Lucille Redmond, BerniceMcDonagh, Keith Brazil, Reinhard Schäler, HelenWybrants, Con Gregg, David Zeller .

PUBLISHED BY: Localisation Resources Centre,Campus Innovation Centre, Roebuck Castle, UCD,Belfield, Dublin 4.Tel: +353-1-706-7898Fax: +353-1-283-0669email: lrc@ucd.ieweb: http://lrc.ucd.ie

ARTICLES provided and signed by individual authorsdo not necessarily represent the view of theLocalisation Resources Centre.Editor: Reinhard SchälerNews editor: Keith BrazilResearch and interviews: Lucille RedmondProduction editor: Catherine OsbornCopy editor: Catherine OsbornOrigination: Litho Studios

© 1998 Localisation Resources Centre

Publisher information

The Localisation Resources Centre is part funded

by the European Regional Development Fund

through the Office of Science and Technology.

Advertising in Localisation IrelandCompanies wishing to advertise job opportunities orlocalisation tools (QA, translation, etc.) should contact theLRC for more information at lrc@ucd.ie.

Localisation Resources Centre

December 1998 http:// lrc.ucd.ie LOCALISATIONIRELAND 3

the Irish Development Authority (IDA). The newEuropean Test Centre is situated in Ballina, Co.Mayo, in the west of Ireland.

Software publishers as well as computer andtelecommunications hardware manufacturerswill now be able to centralise the testing of Euro-pean product versions in a single, independent,state-of-the-art facility dedicated solely to prod-uct testing.

Tánaiste Mary Harney, senior members of theIDA, local dignitaries, and dozens of representa-tives from leading IT companies were on hand tocelebrate the event and learn about contract test-ing services first-hand in a half-day workshop.

The Ballina facility, located 160 miles fromDublin, currently employs 30 test engineers and isexpanding to 50 by year-end, and to 150 by theend of 1999. The location takes advantage of ahighly skilled, reliable labor pool from tworegional technical colleges, as well as the lowercost of IT professionals in the west copmpared tothe extremely competitive Dublin market.

In her address to LioNBRIDGE employees andcustomers at the Ballina facility, the Tanaistepraised Mr Cowan’s bold move into the west ofIreland, and pledged support to LioNBRIDGE inthe years to come.

“We are pleased that Lionbridge has chosen toplace this facility in County Mayo,” she said.“Lionbridge is a major player in this industry,and their rapid expansion in Ireland has been avery positive development.” A commemorativeplaque was unveiled by the Tanaiste and MrCowan. The IDA also pledged its support andlauded the move to Ballina.

LioNBRIDGE CEO Rory J. Cowan toldemployees, customers and reporters that youngerengineers would be able to enjoy a higher stan-dard of living in the west of Ireland.

LioNBRIDGE has entered a partnership withAthlone RTC (Regional Technical College) andCastlebar RTC, providing a skilled labor pool forthe European Test Centre. This is the fourth com-pany that Cowan has brought to Ireland, all hav-ing enjoyed tremendous success.

The opening was attended by leading IT com-panies, including Bentley Systems, Compaq,Corel, Cybermedia, Dell Computers, GartnerGroup, Gateway, Kodak, Lotus, Macromedia,Microsoft, Netscape, Network Associates, Nor-tel, Pervasive Software, Platinum Software, Quar-terdeck International, Sun Microsystems, Stratus,Symantec, Tetra, and Visio.

FROM LEFT: Regional IDA manager Tom Hyland, Minister of State Dr Tom Moffatt, LioNBRIDGE test-ing services manager Paul McBride, Tanaiste Mary Harney, LioNBRIDGE group manager DeniseMonteith, LioNBRIDGE CEO Rory Cowan, Ballina UDC chairman Neil Doherty

▼

Dermot McCarthy appointed managing directorSTAR has appointed Dermot McCarthy as man-aging director to head-up its Irish operation.

From the Irish office, STAR is actively market-ing its localisation services and translation toolsto the client and vendor base in Ireland.

The importance of the Irish localisation mar-ket is recognised by STAR. Since March, the com-pany has been selling its TRANSIT family oftranslation tools in Ireland.

With this appointment, the company nowplans to market its product localisation servicestoo.

The STAR group, founded in 1984, provideslocalisation services to major clients operating inthe software, electronic, automobile and processcontrol industries.

STAR also designs and distributes its ownsuite of translation tools. The TRANSIT familyof translation tools includes Transit 2.7 transla-tion memory manager, and TermStar 2.7 termi-nology manager.

STAR continues to expand its productrange, and thisyear sees therelease of TRAN-SIT 3.0, a full32bit edition of theproduct that offersa more intuitiveuser interface. ■

STAR

New STAR man-aging directorDermot McCarthycan be contacted atEglington House,Eglington Rd, Bray,Co. Wicklow

▼

Sykes: the global companyAlthough it’s an enormous multinational company, Sykes pridesitself on knowing local markets well enough to provide truly comprehensive localisation services in 24 languages.

Sykes Enterprises, Incorp-orated is a massive com-pany, with over 7400employees worldwide, 45locations in 13 countries

and an annual turnover of morethan $313m.

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida,Sykes’ core business is providingclients from the IT, information andcommunications industries with aglobal network of customer support,product services and localisation,throughout the total lifecycle of theirproducts.

Sykes was founded 21 years ago inNorth Carolina, as a technical writ-ing company. It had localisation facil-ities in Boulder, Colorado, with atechnical writing operation in Boise,Idaho, but Sykes’ key expansion ofits Localisation Division came in Jan-uary earlier this year, when the com-pany acquired McQueen, the 153 yearold Scottish company specialising incall centre, localisation, and fulfilmentservices.

McQueen brought to Sykes some1,200 staff in Europe, America andthe Philippines and a powerful repu-tation for providing topline solutionsto many international leaders in theIT and communication industries. Thecompany now provides translationservices, by native speakers, in 24 lan-guages, covering Western and Eastern

Europe and the primary Asian mar-kets.

Sykes’ global localisation opera-tions are headquartered in one of thecompany’s pan-European call centres,in Edinburgh, Scotland. Due to asteady increase in business, a new25,000 square foot facility is to beopened in the heart of the city inDecember, which will see an entirebuilding devoted to the LocalisationDivision.

The strategy behind Sykes’ growthof this key division is to build centralhubs for its areas of business: projectmanagement, engineering, testing andgraphic layout. Edinburgh and Boul-der are the company’s main hubs,which will be joined by Shannon as afully fledged hub in the next 12months. These hubs are supported bythe satellites in Boise and a furthertwo in Les Ulis in France and Leuvenin Belgium, which act as translationcentres. These will be joined in 1999by two sites in Amsterdam and Stock-holm. It is this hub and satellite modelthat gives Sykes access to valuable in-country resource support and a bet-ter ability to flex support whenrequired.

“This strategy works well for Sykesand for our clients; because we’re alarge company, it’s easier for us toopen a localisation centre than forsomeone starting out a new company

with the legal set-up and so on. It’s allthere — we have the payroll, the HRand the networks. So really it’s a greatopportunity for us as a company toanticipate our clients’ needs.” saysJoseph V. Ryan, Vice President ofLocalisation Services.

Part of the Sykes strategy is also toestablish its centres where there is aready supply of people. Leuven waschosen as an ideal location because ithas a language school. In Irelandabout 30 per cent of the staff havecome from the software testing cen-tre in Tralee, and the balance from theUniversity of Limerick, from the post-graduate software localisationdiploma course. Sponsored pro-grammes in local universities are stan-dard in the US and will be part of thestrategy in Europe.

Two key differentiators - advancedmulti-media capability and extensive

4 LOCALISATIONIRELAND h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e December 1998

experience in taking entire productsto Gold Master — set the companyapart from its competitors and havecontributed to its steady growth. It’sa mark both of Sykes’ engineering andtesting function excellence and of thelevel of trust the company builds withits clients that the localisation processcan be taken through to Gold Mas-ter stage. Many publishers are reluc-tant to go beyond the translationphase, which means that customersoften receive a modified version of theoriginal US software, rather than atruly localised product.

The outsourcing giant also appliesa wide range of talent and capabili-ties to the tasks of designing, pro-ducing and publishing information,whether it be printed or online infor-mation, consumer packaging or train-ing manuals. In addition to thecomplete design and development ofmaterials, Sykes performs a full rangeof services in multimedia and onlinecommunications. This enhanced rangeof services enables the company topass on to its clients the key benefitsand strong competitive advantages ofreduced time to market.

The philosophy of Sykes issummed up in its strapline — RealPeople, Real Solutions — says JoeRyan. “We supply top quality peoplewith the latest tools, to enable themto provide value-added solutions toour clients. Our philosophy is to pro-vide the market with the best andmost innovative services we possiblycan, with the result that our clientswill be more profitable and efficientdue to partnering with Sykes.”

Sykes offers localisation to clientseither as a standalone solution or aspart of an integrated package of cus-tomer and product services. In addi-tion to localisation, Sykes provides aglobal network of outsourced solu-tions including technical support,helpdesk services, telemarketing, salesand customer support, distribution,packaging, print services, professionalIT staffing, application developmentand award-winning diagnostic tools.

“However, it is the company’sLocalisation Division that is the cur-rent focus for growth,” says Ryan.“In the future, Sykes aims to be oneof the top five localisation companiesin the world as well as the leading sup-plier of outsourced technology solu-tions. The global supplier with localknowledge.” ■

LEFT: One ofSykes’ pan-European supportcentres, at CalderHouse, EdinburghBELOW: Joe Ryansays the Sykesstrapline — RealPeople, RealSoltutions — isthe substance ofthe Sykesapproach.

▼

COMPANYCLOSE-UP

December 1998 h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e LOCALISATIONIRELAND 5

COMPANYCLOSE-UP

y in your neighbourhood

Sykes relies on the skillsand dedication of its people. Lorraine Barkerand Birgit Hecker are twokey team members.

Lorraine Barker: goes home with a real senseof achievement

Birgit Hecker: the highlight of her job is see-ing products placed on shelves when the job is finished

▼▼

Lorraine Barker, Testing Manager,Localisation Services, Sykes

AS TESTING manager of Localisation Services atSykes, Lorraine Barker manages both the wholetesting process and the testing of engineers for allthe projects carried out at the company’s EuropeanLocalisation headquarters in Edinburgh.

Sykes employs the PACE model — product andcycle time excellence — which empowers each mem-ber of the localisation team to take on responsibil-ity for his or her own projects. On a functional level,it is Lorraine’s task to step in when a problem arisesthat prevents the team from progressing a particu-lar project on a day to day basis, liaising internallyand with clients to swiftly resolve the situation.

On a higher level, it also falls to Lorraine toensure that the skills of the department reflect whatis required by clients, to evaluate the marketplace,to ensure that training programmes meet eachemployee’s needs, as well as budgeting, evaluatingand planning for future business.

Before joining Sykes, Lorraine was a testing leadat Kingston SCL . But Lorraine is no stranger toSykes’ European Headquarters at Calder House:before joining Kingston she was employed as a test-ing lead at McQueen, the outsourcing specialist thatSykes acquired in January 1998.

“I joined Kingston to gain more experience ofdifferent forms of testing and automated testing.Two years later I came back to Sykes in a manage-rial role. It was a case of the right move at the righttime that tempted me back to the fold, and I alwaysenjoy a challenge!” says Lorraine.

Birgit Hecker, Project Manager, Localisation Services, SykesBROUGHT up near the German town of Koblenz,close to the French border, but now working atSykes’ European headquarters in Edinburgh, Bir-git Hecker finds herself a long way from home.

On graduating with a Conference Interpretingdegree in French and English from the Universityof Saarland, Birgit was quick to realise the oppor-tunities for her languages degree in the IT industryand immediately applied for a position she had seenadvertised at university, in Aldus’ LocalisationDepartment in Edinburgh. Birgit joined Aldus in1991 as Localisation Co-ordinator for German,with responsibility for co-ordinating and moni-toring the quality of localisation activities. She heldthis position for five years before transferring toMcQueen after Aldus’ merger with Adobe Systemsin 1994.

A year ago Birgit was promoted to the chal-lenging position of project manager. “This is a dualfocus role,” she says. “Internally, I work togetherwith a team of translators, graphic artists, engi-neers and testers.

“It is my responsibility to track costs and deliv-ery dates, or project milestones as we refer to themin the industry. I must also ensure that the team hasall the information from the client to enable theproject to run smoothly and on time and that theend result is a high-quality product.

“Externally, it is my role to liaise with the client

Lorraine became involved in localisation purelybecause of an intense interest in computers, whichshe developed 12 years ago. Working as a techni-cal support agent she soon wanted to know moreabout the inner workings of a computer, so shesigned up for a number of IT and developmentcourses at the local college. Nine years ago a posi-tion came up in the System Services Department atMcQueen; Lorraine grabbed it and she’s neverlooked back.

“The most satisfying element of my job mustbe being able to find a solution to any issuesthat arise.

“If I’ve managed to juggle workloads, resourcesand equipment within the department to get rounda problem, I go home at night with a real sense ofachievement, looking forward to the next day.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge Lorraine has facedsince she returned to Sykes has been managing therestructuring of the Testing Department and puttingin place documented procedure guidelines andprocesses.

“We are now beginning to see clear and verypositive results from this restructuring. It has enabledus to increase productivity within the department,and as I have been responsible for implementingclear career paths and training programmes fortesters, it has also been very rewarding for the indi-vidual team members,” she adds.

“It’s an exciting time to be working at Sykes rightnow; there’s a lot going on. We’re witnessing a hugeperiod of expansion. In Edinburgh, we’re shortlyrelocating Localisation Services to a new office inthe centre of the city, which will give us the capac-ity to grow to 175 and establish a true centre forlocalisation excellence in Scotland.” ■

and see they are kept abreast of all progress on theproject and are aware of the delivery dates for eachstage.”

Birgit adds: “Working in Localisation meansworking at the cutting edge of technology. The con-stantly changing environment makes it an excitingindustry. I really enjoy working with a dedicatedteam at both Sykes and the client. That gives megreat job satisfaction. The highlight of my job hasto be when I see the finished products and packsthat my team has been responsible for localisingactually on the shelves.

“It’s the nature of the localisation industry thatprojects are run on very tight timelines. Usuallywe find that the software package has alreadybeen launched in the States and in the UK, andthe client is understandably anxious to push theproduct in the rest of Europe as soon as is phys-ically possible.

Or there might be an important European tradeshow coming up where the French and Spanish ver-sions are to be launched.

“Whatever the case, I really enjoy the build-upin each project and rising to meet any challengingdeadline. I also get a buzz out of helping Sykes main-tain our competitive edge on the market.”

Like Lorraine Barker, Birgit too recognises thatit’s an exciting time to be employed at Sykes andshe’s looking forward to growing and developingher skills as project manager — ensuring Sykes keepsdelivering top quality products for clients, on time,every time. ■

The teamis the key

revisited in his presentation at the mainconference event on Friday, where hespoke of the opportunities offered bythe Fifth FrameWork. Tony Hegarty(LingLINK), spoke spiritedly on work-ing together across projectboundaries. The keymessage, conver-gence is at lasttaking place.

Of impor-tant note toIreland werethe presen-t a t i o n sfrom Ber-n i c eMcDonagh(LRC) andAlex Monaghan(DCU), onEuromap. The IrishNational Focal Point isbeing run by ALC Ltd.

Workshop 2 — Education andtraining: the CLP Project — wasopened by Helen Wybrants (LRC)who set the scene for the workshop

and launched the development of theCurriculum Councils. She reportedon the significant work to date, inrealising the occupation descriptorsfor the jobs representative of the

industry. Patricia Magee pre-sented a review of the

work undertaken todate by TELSI inassociation withthe LRC andwith the sup-port and inputof the industrythrough theSLIG.

P a t r i c i aintroduced indus-

try representativeswho each presented

an overview of the keyaspects of the jobs in the

areas of QA Engineering, SoftwareEngineering and the Internationalisa-tion Enabling Specialist fields. NiallBermingham (Senior QA Engineer,Symantec), John Rowley (Senior

SLIG ‘98SLIG ‘98

6 LOCALISATIONIRELAND h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e December 1998

SLIG98 was the forum for radi-cal changes in the localisationindustry, including the news

that the LRC is moving from UCDto the University of Limerick.

LRC manager Reinhard Schälerhas established a company calledAdapt Localisation Consultants(ALC), a limited company that willmanage SLIG from Dublin — a deci-sion recently voted on at the SLIGegm on 27 November.

Two hundred people from fourcontinents attended the three-daymeeting in UCD’s O’Reilly Hall onthe Belfield campus in Dublin.

The event included the SLIG agm,where Reinhard Schäler made avisionary presentation on launchingthe localisation industry’s research and

support structure into the next mil-lennium.

An eclectic series of workshopsoffering a wide scope of interests waspresented on the second day.

Workshop 1 — Language Engi-neering in Europe: The LocalisationPerspective — took place in theappropriately named Le Village,where participants were presentedwith a review of some of the projectsin the highly successful and innova-tive LE Programme. They includedthe OTELO, TransRouter, LING-LINK, EUROPMAP, DiET and Dico-Pro projects.

Roberto Cencioni, Head of Unit,EC, DGXIII-E5, LE Sector, spoke ofexperiences gained from the FourthFramework Programme, which he later

SLIGREPORT

Localisation: The Nex

Lucille Redmond attended SLIG 98, where the debate aboutthe future of localisation was animated — and the craic was lively too.

Localisation: The Nex

ClaudePesquet spoke

eloquently of the need toretain our own languages,and the way in which lan-

guage expresses more thanjust the plain words

spoken.

Career OpportunitiesXerox Language Services provides large-scale technical translation, publishing and documentconsultancy to international organisations. Due to expansion, we are looking for enthusiastic

translation professionals to fill the following positions in our Slough operations centre.

Technical Process & Terminology Manager

The XLS Technical Process Group defines, implements and delivers linguistic, terminology andtechnical processes in response to internal and external customer requirements. The group

comprises specialists in process design, localisation and terminology management, as well asproduction support engineers who work directly with our project teams.

We are looking for an excellent communicator with a track record in managing and developingpeople and processes to manage this group. Key skills for the role are the ability to conductroot-cause analyses, experience of terminology development, and an in-depth knowledge of

translation tools and technologies.

Project ManagersWorking within account teams, our Project Managers are responsible for all aspects of project

delivery, from the collection and analysis of customer requirements through to delivery.We are looking for Project Managers with a minimum of two years’ experience, ideally in the

translation or localisation field, to join our international team. Essential requirements for this roleare business acumen and proven customer management skills, combined with excellent

communication, planning, budgetting and scheduling abilities.

Please apply to: Jamie Hunter, Xerox Language Services, Key West, 53-61Windsor Road, Slough SL1 2EE. Fax: 01753 512488.

Email: Jamie_Hunter.rxl@eur.xerox.com.

BELOW:Tánaiste Mary

Harney withDamian

Scattergoodof Symantec

(left) andReinhard

Schäler (right)at SLIG ‘98.

▼

SLIGREPORT

December, 1998 h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e LOCALISATIONIRELAND 7

Localisation Manager, Corel), TomGarland (Internationalisation Man-ager, Sun Microsystems) and ConorToomey (Development Manager,Lotus Development) all spoke.

The workshop included pre-sentations from Dr ChristineHorn of Lionet Technologies

on the subject of ‘Web basedCertification Techniques’ and EamonnCarey, FÁS, (Loughlinstown), pre-sented a Certification Model review.There was an opportunity to seedemonstrated the trial CLP Onlinetest area, currently hosted by LionetTechnologies.

The final workshop of the day wasfocused on running successful surveysin the industry. It was called ‘Facts,Figures and Trends’, which raised alot of initial expectations for the par-ticipants, they clearly expected to bewalking away from the session armedwith just that — facts and figures forthe industry.

The session proved useful as aforum to discuss what might beneeded by the industry and who mightactually do it. Michael Anobile ofLISA, made one of his ever impres-sive presentations on the LISA Sur-vey, but it appears that he does nothave all the answers either.

Grand openingOn Friday the conference was

opened by an Tánaiste, Ms MaryHarney, who noted that the govern-ment was putting £250 million intoeducation in technology over the nextthree years.

Symantec’s Damian Scattergoodpresented Brona Collins of TCD withthe Best Thesis Award for her doc-torate thesis Example-Based MachineTranslation — an Adaptation-Guided

Approach. Deirdre Hogan of TCDgained an honourable mention for herfinal year honours project on Statis-tical Methods for Identifying Ungram-maticality in Texts.

The conference had sessions onThe Bigger Picture and StrategicApproaches, chaired by Jennifer Con-don (National Software Directorate),and a panel discussion on Localisa-tion: The Next Generation.

Kevin Cavanaugh of Lotus Devel-opment gave a guided tour of theworld wide web — and exactly howworldwide it actually is, with two-thirds of web sites currently locatedin the US, 65% in English and only10% multilingual. Lotus sees thischanging as the web becomes multi-lingual, and is providing advancedtools to enable businesses to localisewebsites.

The meaning of wordsClaude Pesquet of Compaq has

worked in France, Iran, Kenya, Nige-ria, Hong Kong and the US, andspeaks most of the languages of thecountries where he worked. He spokeeloquently of the need to retain ourown languages, and the way in whichlanguage expresses more than just theplain words spoken. He talked aboutthe outsourcing models of the future,and the strategic approaches thatwould best serve the industry.

Jon Bosak, Sun Microsys-tems’ online infotech architect,gave a stunning presentationon XML, a highly politicised

talk, which hinted that the bigmultinational players in the industrywould be only too happy for XML tobe suppressed or kept as a very lim-ited web application.

Bosak sees XSL and XML combin-ing to serve as a com-pletely internationalpublishing format,which he said couldsee an end to controlof the localisationmarket by a few big companies — andmore importantly from the Europeanpoint of view, by a few big countries.

In the session on Strategic Ap-proaches: Internal andExternal Demands of Localisation,Geraldine Lim ofALPNET spokemovingly of theproblems Asians aresuffering with the cor-rection in markets, and the lessons thathave been learned and that can also belearned by other parts of the world.

Localisation isn’t yet one of Asia’smajor industries, but ALPNET is thelargest public-ly owneddedicated

xt Generation

By LUCILLE REDMOND

B róna Collins won the Best Thesis Award sponsored by Symantec for her thesis Example-BasedMachine Translation — an Adaptation-Guided Approach. Collins studied computer science, linguis-tics and a language in Trinity College, Dublin, and after two years doing a psycholinguistic study in

Freiburg in Germany, returned to TCD to lecture and study for a PhD.“My thesis research was partially funded by Hitachi Dublin Laboratories, who wanted to develop some-

thing that would translate Japanese — eventually.” The language chosen for the prototype was German. “It was a case-based reasoning approach to machine

translation. That’s a branch of reasoning that puts memory at the base of reasoning, so it solves problemsusing previously solved problems. Basically, I stored previous translations in a format that could be reused.”

The translations were drawn from the Corel Draw Version 6 database, which was already aligned on asentence basis, making it easier to work with. “My supervisor, Pádraig Cunningham, was in contact withCorel, and Orlagh Neary from Corel was interested in doing a masters in a localisation topic as well, so itworked out well.”

Having gathered an initial 800 examples, the next thing was to organise them. “You need some way ofindexing those, and I had to decide whether to index them at a very shallow level — at the word level — orat a higher level, which would necessitate some kind of processing.”

Any kind of processing was going to be expensive, and this was a memory solution rather than a rule-based one. “I experimented first with a low-level syntactic description, and stayed at that description level— in between a morphological level and a full syntactic analysis.”

All this had been done before, but Collins also created an algorithm to index each example by its adapt-ability — how easily it would translate into German as describable by parallel structures. “If you coulddescribe the interface between the two languages in this low-level representational language, then it wasdeemed adaptable, and that would influence the kind of index you put on the source language side of the corpus.”

She also tested the method out on some examples in Irish from the phone book — just over 100 sentences. “Irish has a very different word order, so it showed the algorithm wasn’t dependent on word orderor any similarity between the two languages.”

Collins is now a project leader and manager in Lernout and Hauspie, a Belgian company that makes text-to-speech and dictation products and specialises in human and machine translation.

Bróna Collins wins BestThesis Award

supplier of worldwide translation andproduct localisation services, withmore than 600 staff in 16 countriesin Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Panel discussionA rousing panel discussion chaired

by Seamus Gallen of the NationalSoftware Directorate tore into thesubject of training and the place ofbusinesses in that training. ElaineStephen of Lotus Development, JohnMalone of Microsoft WPGI, DavidMacDonald of International Trans-lation and Publishing and Sheena

Dempsey of LionBRIDGE formed thepanel.

Apart from the more serious endof the programme, SLIG 98 was inter-spersed with product demonstrationsby the leaders and groundbreakers inthe industry.

It also had its lighter side, with cor-porate gifts (pens from Bowne,peanuts from TRADOS, and jelly-beans and a crush-the-world globealso from Bowne) and a belly-busterof a meal in Temple Bar with a lim-ited free bar generously sponsored byIOLAR. ■xt Generation

ABOVE: Delegates relaxing during a coffee break at SLIG ‘98

▼

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

LOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATION

LOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATIONLOCALISATION

WORKSHOPFOCUS

8 LOCALISATIONIRELAND h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e December 1998

Key issues stillto be probed

Le Village at SLIG ‘98

SLIG ‘98 offered an ideal plat-form for promoting an aware-ness of language engineering

activities in Ireland and Europe anda language engineering concertationevent was organised over the two-day period (8th and 9th October) ina specially constructed workshoparea - Le Village.

Almost 100 people registered forthe event and representatives fromprojects funded under the TelematicsApplications Programme presentedand demonstrated project progressand results.

Day one kicked off with presenta-tions from Roberto Cencioni ofDGXIII and Tony Hegarty ofLINGLINK.

Presentations and demos followedthroughout the day by representativesfrom the OTELO (Dr Alan Barrett),TransRouter (Reinhard Schäler),EUROMAP (Dr. Alex Monaghan andBernice McDonagh), DiET (Dr Klaus

Netter) and DicoPro (Susan Arm-strong) projects.

A plenary session was held on Fri-day 8th with participants from the LEworkshop and the SLIG ‘98 confer-ence. Roberto Cencioni of DGXIIIoutlined the objectives and scope ofthe IST programme. Bengt Gustaffsonfollowed with an overview of theMultiDoc project.

Presentations from the conferenceand workshop have been made avail-able on the website of the Localisa-tion Resources Centre (http://lrc.ucd.ie/Presentations/Presenta-tionsfr.html).

The next issue of Localisation Ire-land will focus on a number ofresearch projects — including theEUROMAP project, which will holdtwo seminars in December and Janu-ary on opportunities for research inthe area of human language tech-nologies under the EU’s forthcomingFifth Framework Programme. ■

BY CON CREGG

Iwas invited to give a short pre-sentation to the workshop on apossible localisation industry

survey at SLIG ‘98. The subject wasmy experience of surveying the IrishSoftware sector as manager of theFÁS Manpower, Education andTraining Study of the Irish SoftwareSector, published in June. It has fedinto the work of the Government’sExpert Group on Future SkillsNeeds, which is guiding the State-funded response to the economy’sskills needs.

Key issues raised during discus-sions were:

Scale of survey: Given that local-isation is a global industry, it wouldbe desirable to conduct a global sur-vey, but the cost could be an insur-mountable obstacle. Would anIreland-only survey produce enough

useful information? Perhaps it couldbe extended in the future.

Surveying body : Is it possible toconvince one of the global researchorganisations that it makes businesssense to survey the sector? Might a“big four” company take on a sur-vey? Should SLIG cooperate withLISA on a survey? Should SLIG usean Irish firm to survey the local indus-try? There was a consensus that thetask is not suitable for the LRC.

Depth of survey: Is a written sur-vey adequate, or is greater strategicbreadth and depth (achievablethrough interviews and workshopswith key players) necessary?

Scope of survey: How do we definethe boundaries of the localisationindustry to be surveyed? (e.g. areprinting/kitting/logistics servicesincluded?)

Source of funding: How will thefunding be split between payment by

the commissioning organisation(s) andsale of the research? Who is interestedenough to pay?

The discussion reached few firmconclusions. On reflection, I feel therewas something missing from the dis-cussion. The key issues of identifyingwho has a real business need forresearch, and identifying what out-puts are worth paying for, remainedlargely in the background. The meet-ing agreed with the Chair’s proposalto pursue the survey through a lim-ited discussion forum. This appearsto be an appropriate way to makeprogress.

The workshop digressed on to thetopic of manpower shortages at onepoint. It struck me from the way thatthe discussion progressed that theLocalisation Industry appears not to

be aware of the scale of the effortbeing made by the Government, thethird level colleges and FÁS to addressthe shortage of software manpower.

In our 1998 study, we projectedthat existing plans would more thantreble computing degrees awarded (to2,125 in 2002). Many additionalplaces are now being created at thirdlevel, and FÁS has recently announcedit will train another 900 people a yearin software related skills — with someprogrammes focused specifically onlocalisation.

This should give the industry moreconfidence in the future supply of soft-ware staff in Ireland. ■

Con Gregg is the principal con-sultant at McIver Consulting. He canbe reached at mciver@indigo.ie.Phone: 01-676 6647

MichaelAnobile (LISA)and Raymond

Buchan (ITP)discussing

localisationissues.

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One of themain events in1998 forEuropeanLanguageEngineering

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Dr Christine Horn of Lionet highlights the enormous potential of online certification for localisation professionals▼

Everyone knows that Irelandhas become a hotbed of theIT sector. Ireland is taking the

lead in supplying the world’s soft-ware. Such was the modus operandifor presenters at SLIG 98. Getting atthe truth behind such conventionalwisdom is one good reason forattending SLIG workshops. Theinternational roster of attendeesalone indicates that something isverifiably hot in Ireland.

Though Ireland’s exact ranking inthe world may not be cut and dried,one thing remains certain — the needto define standards within the IT andlocalisation industries.

Here SLIG plays an importantrole, and more importantly, the CLPProject headed up by HelenWybrants.

Challenging roleAs the project manager since Feb-

ruary 98 for the ADAPT Project Cer-tified Localisation Professional (CLP),Helen is taking on a challenging roleof establishing an accreditation sys-tem for the software localisationindustry.

This is no small endeavor when oneconsiders that software localisation issuch a loose term and covers a myriadof undefined procedures and skills.Herein lies the grunt work wheresleeves need to be rolled up and ideasbrainstormed and battered back and

forth in a workshop environment madeup of three or four small companies’localisation managers and specialists.

Through such efforts, the CLP pro-ject shows promise in profiling jobpaths, defining necessary skills, avoid-ing overqualification and setting thecoursework for an individual to seeka career in this field.

The EU ADAPT Initiative, the par-ent organisation of the CLP, is theEuropean Social Fund CommunityInitiative operating with a budget of3 M ECU. It is designed to help Euro-pean employers and workers antici-pate industrial change and deal withits efforts. Of this budget, approxi-mately 320 K ECU has been assignedto CLP with 100 K ECU being pro-vided by partners. Funding will be

WORKSHOPFOCUS

David Zeller attended aSLIG 98 workshop tofind out about the AdaptCLP project

CLP project has an ambitious brief

continued through 1999.Much work needs to be done

quickly under this tight schedule. AsMs Wybrants pointed out, CLP willdetermine course curricula, set up anindustry driven curriculum council foreach localisation domain, and providean independent national centre ofexcellence. The curriculum councilhas the task of devising, developing,documenting and assessing curriculafor each job domain. In the year tocome they hope to deliver pilotcourses.

From the viewpoint of a supplierorganisation, the CLP project can pro-vide a good basis for evaluating poten-tial employees’ qualifications in hiringand in task distribution. Eventually,it can better marry the customer with

the supplier and increase efficiencytoward the end product — good newsfor software publishers and the indus-try as a whole.

In a season of peace accords, Ire-land once again triumphs in provid-ing the stage where vendors, suppliersand competitors can work togetherfor their common good. Let us all getinvolved in supporting the efforts ofHelen Wybrants and aid in theworthwhile development of the CLPproject. ■

David Zeller is International Oper-ations Coordinator for D&D Inter-national liaising offices in Germany,USA and Brazil, providing worldwidequality translation and software local-isation services.

D avid Zellor (D&D International), observes the realities of the CLP project very well when he says:“Herein lies the grunt work where sleeves need to be rolled up and ideas brainstormed and battered

back and forth in a workshop environment made up of three or four small companies’, localisation man-agers and specialists.

“Through efforts like these, the CLP project shows promise in profiling the job paths, defining the nec-essary skills, avoiding the overqualification syndrome, and setting the coursework for an individual toseek a career in this field.”

The project has done just this. Over the past four months, TELSI, supported by the LRC and SLIG, haveled out the Task Analysis phase of the project by profiling the industry supply chain. The objective hasbeen to define the work and roles in the localisation industry and to standardise these in order to performa skills and competency analysis for each of these standardised roles.

The primary roles identified to be scoped by the project are:QA / Quality Engineer; Software Engineer; Project / Program Manager;

Internationalisation Enabling Specialists.Other roles planned but not concentrated on at this point are:Account Manager, Technical Publishing Specialist, Test/QA Engineer,

Linguist, Automation Tools Developer, L10n Business Manager.The approach strategy of the project has been to classify the companies representing the software

localisation industry in Ireland into customer companies, who perform localisation activites and outsourcesome activities, and suppliers, who supply various services to the customer companies. The suppliers were

further classified according to the services which they provide.A comparative analysis across the customer-supplier chain was perfomed, facilitated by ten customer

companies – (Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Visio International, Microsoft, Oracle, Netscape, Lotus, Corel,Apple and Nortel), and ten Localisation services providers (Alpnet, Bowne, Berlitz, Context, LioNBRIDGE,Simultrans, VistaTEC, ITP, Transware and the MicroWorkshop).

Current state-of-play:A Knowledge and Skills Mapping Workshop was held in Symantec on the 23rd November to map the

knowledge and skills to perform the tasks and activities of the QA Engineer which had resulted from theearlier Task analysis phase.

The outcomes of this workshop was reviewed by representatives from Corel, Visio, Netscape,LI0nBridge and Berlitz.

The Curriculum Council for the QA Engineer role is now ready to be established.Similarily, this month will see three more Knowledge and Skills Mapping Workshops taking place,

hosted by localisation companies active in the project. Lotus are hosting the workshop on Internationalisation Enabling Specialist in the middle of this

month. Corel will host the workshop on the Software Localisation Engineer, scheduled for the 18th December,

and Nortel facilitated the workshop on the Program / Project Manager on the 2nd December.Helen J. Wybrants

CLP–Project Manager

Project is on target

December 1998 h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e LOCALISATIONIRELAND 9

TOOLSREVIEW

10 LOCALISATIONIRELAND h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e December 1998

This issue’s tools review section looks at pre-and post-localisation tools, taking an in-depth look at I18n Expeditor™ from

OneRealm, and then giving a brief introduction toToolproof, a new Irish tool that detects UI bugs atRuntime.

OneRealm, a company based in Boulder, Col-orado, and founded in 1997 to provide solutionsto the challenge of global applications, has createda tool that could possibly revolutionise the softwarelocalisation industry.

I18n Expeditor is a pre-compilation interna-tionalisation tool that performs source code analy-sis, detecting and correcting (often automatically)internationalisation errors. By finding these errorsat the development stage, developers can increasethe quality of their software and reduce the num-ber of expensive post-build and pre-localisation testcycles.

Expeditor has two main components, the TextManager, and the Function Manager. The formerfinds and manages string or character literals andtheir identifiers embedded in source code. It detectsand externalises hard-coded strings both as argu-ments to functions as well as hard coded strings.The latter lets the user identify and modify calls tofunctions that are unsafe from an internationalisa-tion viewpoint.

Expeditor’s user interface (as seen above) has astandard Microsoft Developers Studio feel to it. Theleft side window lists all files contained in the cur-rent project along. Once Expeditor has carried outits internationalisation analysis, files will be markedin one of three ways: with a green hexagon indi-cating a clean file, with a yellow warning triangle,or with a red hexagon indicating an international-isation violation contained in the file. To investigatethese errors, the user simply double clicks its name,invoking the editor, which lists the errors, and pre-sents a marked version of the source code to theuser.

Once an error is found, Expeditor can apply anedit, automatically correcting the error (the type ofcorrection it carries out varies from error to error),place a comment in the code tagging the error forreview at a later time, or override the error and labelit as such.

Expeditor also performs full traces of macroexpansions to the original source, including C pre-processor expansion. This allows Expeditor to findinternationalisation violations that could be easilyoverlooked by even the most experienced pro-grammer. Expeditor’s Organiser logs all these

actions, allowing them to be undone at any timeand reprocessed during future software updates andnew releases.

Expeditor functions both as an internationalisa-tion assessment tool for managers and as a tool toaid developers in the creation of internationalised

software. Its usefulness also extends to localisationvendors in all stages of the localisation process. ■

A full version of the I18N Expeditor is availableat the LRC for demonstration. For more informa-tion, or to try out a demo version, go to the One-Realm web page — http://www.onerealm.com.

Solutionsin the fastlane withExpeditorKeith Brazil of the LRC putsa new pre-localisation toolthrough its paces

Toolproof scores a firstwith new UI bug detectorBY KEITH BRAZIL

Pat Clark, a former tools developer for Syman-tec has developed ToolProof, a unique automaticruntime UI bug detector.

ToolProof automatically examines the UI ofdialogs and menus, detecting clipped strings, over-lapping dialog controls and hotkey problems.

One of the main problems that experienced QA

personnel report is that what is seen in the resourcesfiles is not always what you get at runtime.

ToolProof is the first, and only tool of its typeon the market that carries out dialog and menuchecks at runtime ■

A version of ToolProof is available at the LRCfor demos, for more information contact Pat Clarkat +353 1 4549829 or +353 87 2943959.

Properly internationalised code is a prerequisite for localisers. OneRealm’s I18N Expeditor is easy touse and straightforward to implement.

▼

Toolproof is anotherlocalisation tools success by an Irishdeveloper

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PERSONNELPROFILE

Before he was 21, Ian Dunlop had already run his own computerbusiness. Now he’s Lotus’ development director for new products inEurope. Lucille Redmond spoke to him about his work.

From maverick to corporate maven

High School in Dublin isknown for producing cre-ative students, and Ian

Dunlop left at the age of 17 with anentrance exhibition scholarship toTrinity in Maths.

His parents had just moved to themidlands, and Dunlop got himself aflat in the city and went to college.

But college life was not as inter-esting as he expected, and he quicklyset up a business with two friends andleft TCD. “It was 1978, just beforePCs came out, and we set up a busi-ness to sell small board-level micro-computers.”

The BasicsThey sold to engineers and busi-

nesses who used the computers forcontrolling things like assembly linesand other industrial applications.“They could run Basic, and they werethe precursor of personal computers.”

When the company folded Dun-lop was around 21.

“I took a minor detour intoaccountancy, which did-n’t suit me, then got astart in anothercomputer com-pany because Iknew PCsinside out.”

This wasC o m p u t e rManagementServices, amainframe com-pany getting intoPCs at the time,which became a PCcompany within a coupleof years.

“I was a technical director there —in a relatively small company, only 20people at the time, which built pay-roll, accountancy, hire purchase andbanking systems, all software forPCs.”

The company was taken over byNational City Brokers. “We werecalled Dealformatics at the time, andwe built some decision support soft-ware for NCB.” Around 1986 QuayFinancial Software was formed, withthe backing of NCB’s DermotDesmond.

“There were three of us: a man-

aging director, a mathematician andmyself as technical director.”

The mission was to make MarketData Distribution Systems (MDDS).“At that time these were all done onminicomputers and Unix worksta-tions, and our vision was to do it onPCs. Our competitors said it couldn’tbe done.

From three people in an Irish com-pany, after some eight years they had90 employees, 3,500 dealer positionsin 37 countries and were number threein the global market for MDDS.

And it was all on PCs.Dunlop was gaining experience not

only in architecture, design, develop-ment, sales, marketing and support,but also working in global marketsand different business conventionsinternationally.

He found it an exciting market towork in. Financial systems are critical;if your system displays the wrong dataand someone does a trade, it can resultin the loss of millions. “It’s pretty scary

when you see a 300-positiontrading room coming

up with your soft-ware for the first

time, all thesepeople relyingfor their jobson it.”

A l a r g eamount ofD u n l o p ’ swork was in

assuring thatthe system was

fault-tolerant, re-silient, would never

show incorrect dataand would always show

when data was out of date.As the business grew, Dunlop

found that the easy communicationof the small “one-room” business wasfading out, and he installed LotusNotes in Quay to share the informa-tion throughout what was now a 30-person company. Soon every singlebusiness and development process wasworking on Lotus Notes, includingthe first paperless ISO9000 system inIreland.

“In 1994 an offer came across mydesk for a director position in Lotus.It was interesting to me because it was

a European product developmentposition for Notes. I also wanted toget broader management experiencein a multinational corporation.”

Lotus was not uncomfortably huge— at the time it was a medium 5,000staff. “It was less than a year later thatIBM took over.”

IBM had a quarter of a millionstaff, and was a different style of com-pany from the radical, techie Lotus,but IBM has had a hands-off ap-proach, leaving Lotus to develop itsproducts and its ethos.

Dunlop has been four yearswith Lotus, in which time theEuropean contribution toLotus revenue has doubled.

“ A s p a r t o f t h esenior managementteam I work on issuessuch as vendor strat-egy, outsourcing, theenvironment thecompany works in,understanding the mar-kets it supplies productto, the developmentteams, technologytrends such as com-puter-aided transla-tion, Java, CORBAand XML. Dunlop alsoworks with SLIG and inPR for Lotus.

“I’ve been responsiblefor building and manag-ing teams which ship Euro-pean and Latin Americanversions of Lotus productssuch as Domino Notes,Organizer, cc:Mail —

It’spretty scary when

you see a 300-positiontrading room coming up

with your software for thefirst time, all these people

relying for their jobs on it.

market leaders in their field whichbring hundreds of millions of dollarsa year in revenue.”

New movesHe is now building a group to

bring new products to market — dis-tributed learning, document manage-ment, Internet and e-commerce,wireless, mobile and cybercommproducts, and Java-based productiv-ity suites.

“It’s interesting, exciting stuff andthe New Products group is develop-ing products that will create new mar-kets and opportunities for ourcustomers.

“I have a great team which isyoung and quickly building exper-tise in the intersection of new tech-nologies and the local isat ionindustry.” ■

December 1998 h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e LOCALISATIONIRELAND 11

Ian Dunlop is the brain behindLotus’ European New ProductDevelopment Group. After manyyears in the localisation business,he is more than ever enthusiasticabout the future of the industry.

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12 LOCALISATIONIRELAND h t t p : / / l r c . u c d . i e December 1998

RESOURCECENTRAL

THE LOCALISATION Resources Centre is the focus point and theresearch and support centre for the Irish-based localisationindustry. It was established in December 1995 at UniversityCollege Dublin under Forbairt’s Technology CentresProgramme with financial assistance from the EuropeanRegional Development Fund.

The establishment of the centre had the express support of morethan a dozen software publishers and localisation serviceproviders, as well as the National Software Directorate andthe Software Localisation Interest Group (SLIG).

The centre’s key activities cover research, development and evaluation of localisation tools, the establishment of a localisation tools library, consultancy services, education andtraining and regular publications.

The Localisation Resources Centre is also involved in projects underthe Fourth Framework Programme and the ADAPT Initiative.

The LRC Advisory BoardDr Arthur Cater, Department of Computer Science, UCD; Seamus Gallen, Forbairt; Gunnie Jacobsson, Augur Limited; Brian Kelly, Vice President Western Europe, BerlitzInternational Inc.; Geraldine Lavin, University Industry Programme, UCD;John Malone, European Business Manager, Microsoft WPGI;Michael O’Callaghan, Vice President, Oracle WorldwideProduct Translation;Reinhard Schäler, Manager, Localisation Resources Centre;Helen J. Wybrants, ISC-Europe.

For more detailed information about our services, please visit ourweb site at http://lrc.ucd.ie.

The Localisation Resources Centre SLIG committee

SLIG Committee 1998/99Seán F. Ó Drisceoil, Secretary (Cormorant Telematic Systems)John Rowley, Chair (Corel)Shiera O’Brien (ALPNET) TreasurerAnna Brady (Consultant)Len Smith (Symantec)Lisa Skov Jensen (VistaTEC)

Ireland has established itself as one of the majorsoftware localisation centres in the world, andalso as the leading European location for this

activity. It is now estimated that up to 60% of the PC-

based software sold in Europe originates in Irelandand this figure is expected to rise in the coming years.Ireland is the world’s second largest exporter of soft-ware after the United States of America.

Localisation Ireland is the news medium of thisvibrant and dynamic industry.

It is published by the Localisation Resources Cen-tre, with each issue generously supported by one ofthe main players in the industry. Localisation Ire-land brings news on the current issues in localisa-tion (new arrivals, education and training, jobs,tools, events) to up to 2,000 people — for free!

We want to hear from you. If you would like to contribute to Localisation

Ireland, please let us know. We welcome and appre-ciate all your comments, product announcements,news and reviews.

LOCAL ISAT IONIREL AND

TransRouterThe Translation Router is a project funded under the EU’s FourthFramework Programme (Telematics/Language Engineering). Theaim is to develop the prototype of a decision support tool for translation managers. Partners are Berlitz, ISSCO, GMS, CST, andthe Universities of Edinburgh and Regensburg.

DiETThe aim of this Language Engineering project (European 4thFramework Programme) is the development of diagnostics andevaluation tools and resources for the evaluation of natural language processing applications. Partners are DFKI, ISSCO, Aerospatiale, IBM and SRI.

EUROMAPThis project has established national focus points (NFP) in each ofthe member states of the European Union. ALC Ltd is the Irish NFP.One of the main objectives of this project is to raise awarenessabout the upcoming European 5th Framework Programme relating

to Human Language Technologies and to encourage and facilitateactive participation of Irish researchers and industry.

LINGLINK-IIALC is actively involved in the preparation of a major Europeanstudy on the localisation of multimedia and digital contents inpreparation for the Fifth Framework Programme.

Certified Localisation Professional (CLP)This EU ADAPT funded project (through the Department ofEnterprise, Trade and Employment) will develop job profiles, skillsrequirements, outline curricula and a national certification programme for the localisation industry.

WebITThis project ,proposed under the European MLIS programme, hassuccessfully passed the evaluation stage and is currently beingnegotiated with the European Commission. For more details on each of these projects visit our web site(http://lrc.ucd.ie).

EU projects

Localisation Resources Centre

East meets West atSeptember SLIG meeting

The 6th SLIG meeting took place on 24thSeptember at the University IndustryCentre, UCD. The topic under discussion

was Japanese Localisation and the speaker wasHideyuki Namiki, Technical Director ofInternational Translation and Publishing Japan.The speaker was introduced by Helen J. Wybrantsof the LRC and Raymond Buchan, MarketingManager of ITP, which hosted the event.

Namiki-san divided his presentation into the fol-lowing topics: Translation, Desktop Publishing andEngineering.

On translation, Namiki-san mentioned that theuse of different fonts for emphasis varies from thatin the European languages (e.g. italics cannot beused). This can affect the way in which text is trans-lated. He also alluded to translation difficulties aris-ing from the use of strings, which are concatenatedat run time to generate a variety of different mes-sages. In addition he noted that translation mem-

ory systems such as Trados will work for Japanese.Regarding Desktop Publishing, we learned that

fonts for Japanese need to be purchased individu-ally for each software licence. This can make it desir-able for fewer fonts to be used in the Japaneseversion than for other language versions. In addi-tion, compatibility problems can exist betweenJapanese and European language versions of DTPsoftware packages.

In discussing Engineering, Namiki-san referredbriefly to the character encodings used for Japan-

ese and their technical characteristics. He alsodescribed the cultural differences relating to certainkinds of standard data such as people’s names, datesand addresses. These can have engineering ramifi-cations relating to such actions as sorting and dis-play on the screen.

Following the presentation there was a questionand answer session. Overall this was a most inter-esting talk.

Richard F. E. SutcliffeUniversity of Limerick

The ITP expertson Asian localisation

issues: HideyukiNamiki and Raymond

Buchan

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