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It seems like ancient history to mesometimes,but I entered the world of localization just over ten years ago.In 1993I joined International Software Products inAmsterdam,a small and specialized local-ization vendor that still exists under thesame name.I had recently graduated as atechnical translator,using an article on thelaunch ofWindows 3.1 as my thesis sub- ject.The seemingly incompatible marriageoflanguage and technology has intriguedme ever since.Still,this is the core charac-teristic ofwhat today we have come toknow as
localization
.In a nutshell,localization revolvesaround combining language and technology to produce a product that can cross culturaland language barriers.No more,no less.In this article,I will explore the fun-damentals oflocalization:what it is,whereit started,how it progressed,what it istoday and what it may be tomorrow.Against this historical background I willdiscuss developments in the localizationservices business,translation technology and general trends.
WherWhere It All Stare It All Started:ted:The 1980sThe 1980s
Desktop computers were introducedin the 1980s,and computer technology slowly started to make its way to users whodid not necessarily have a background incomputer programming or engineering.The early 1980s also saw the first interna-tional ventures ofUS-based computerhardware and software firms.Sun Micro-systems,for example,began operations inEurope in 1983,expanding to Asia andAustralia in 1986.Microsoft had startedinternational operations earlier,openingits first overseas sales office in Tokyo inNovember 1978 and beginning its expan-sion into Europe in 1979.The shift ofcomputer hardware andsoftware use away from corporate or aca-demic IT departments to “normal”users’desks called for a shift in product featuresand functionality.Not only did desktopcomputer users now need software thatwould enable them to do their work moreefficiently,but the software now also hadto reflect business processes that reflectedlocal standards and habits,including locallanguage.Word processors,for example,now needed to support input,processingand output ofcharacter sets in other lan-guages;language-specific features such ashyphenation and spelling;and a user inter-face in the user’s local language.The sameexpectations applied to hardware.Forexample,in 1985 the Spanish governmentdecreed that all computer keyboards soldin Spain should have the
ñ
key.
Internationalize to localize?
The inter-national expansion ofsoftware and hard-ware developers automatically triggeredthe need to localize the products for inter-national markets.Initially,software ven-dors dealt with this new challenge in many different ways.Some established in-houseteams oftranslators and language engi-neers to build international support intotheir products.Others simply chargedtheir international offices or distributorswith the task oflocalizing the products.Inboth cases,the
localization
effort remainedseparated from the
development 
oftheoriginal products.Development groupssimply handed offthe software code andsource files for supporting documentationto those responsible for localization.This separation ofdevelopment andlocalization proved troublesome in many respects.Microsoft,for example,asked itsthen-distributor ASCII in Japan to localizeMultiplan (predecessor ofExcel) intoJapanese.According to a Microsoft direc-tor responsible for localization at thattime,“we’d finish the product,ship it inthe United States,and then turn over thesource code library to the folks in Japan,wish them luck and go on vacation.”Not only was locating the translatabletext embedded in the software source codequite difficult,but the requirement for addi-tional language versions ofthe code madeupdate and version management increasingly complex.Moreover,the localizers often hadto return the products to the developmentteams to first build in support for localizationor international computing standards.Withthese requests,the concept of 
international-ization
was born.Internationalization refers to theadaptation ofproducts to support or en-able localization for international markets.Key features ofinternationalization havealways been the support ofinternationalnatural language character sets,separationoflocale-specific features such as translat-able strings from the software code baseand the addition offunctionality or fea-tures specific to foreign markets.Withoutinternationalization,localizing a productcan be very challenging.
Outsourcing localization.
Initially,many software publishers,such as Microsoft andOracle,established in-house localizationteams who had to adapt the products forkey international markets.A large portionofthis effort was obviously the translationofthe software product itselfand support-ing documentation.US companies oftendecided to place the localization teams intheir European headquarters,many of which were based in Ireland.Even though it seems that localizationvendors are now moving activities to many locations across the globe,Ireland estab-lished itselfas the leader in the localizationindustry during the 1990s.Over the past10 to 20 years,the Industrial DevelopmentAuthority (IDA),a semi-governmentalbody,had the mandate to move Irelandforward industrially by attracting foreigninvestment.In the 1980s,a high concentra-tion ofmanufacturing companies startedin Ireland,including some high-tech com-panies.The Irish government providedwhat it called turnkey factories,where alarge multinational was offered a certainamount ofgovernment subsidy per em-ployee,plus facilities,grants and a corpo-rate tax rate of10% as an incentive toinvest in Ireland.After some failed investments and theincreased competition from manufacturingin cheap labor markets,the Irish government
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The EvolutionThe Evolutionof Localizationof Localization
BerBert Esselinkt Esselink
 
switched its focus to research and develop-ment and the high-tech,blue-chip compa-nies,that is,a more long-term strategy.Mostlarge software and Web companies now havea presence in Ireland,with the bulk oftheirlocalization being managed from there,including Microsoft,Oracle,Lotus Develop-ment,Visio International,Sun Microsystems,Siebel and FileNET.The key benefits they offered these com-panies included a certain amount ofmoney peremployee,a 10% corporate tax rate and exemp-tion from value-added tax (VAT).All products,including software,exported to Europe areexempt from VAT in Ireland.In addition,com-petitive labor costs,with social costs at approx-imately 12% to 15% per employee,mean that itis cheaper to employ people in Ireland than inmany ofthe European Union countries.Com-pared to the United States,development costs are stilllower in Ireland.And Irelandoffered a young,well-educat-ed,motivated work force.Approximately 50% ofthepopulation was under 25 atthe beginning ofthe 1990s.The Irish governmenthas invested a great deal of subsidy in education.Therenow is a strong push to offeradditional computer coursesto cope with the growingdemand for IT and localiza-tion staff.This,combinedwith the fact that Ireland is anEnglish-speaking nation onthe edge ofEurope that servesas a gateway to Europe andthe Euro zone,made many US-based companies decideto base their European head-quarters or distribution cen-ters in Dublin.Translators,localization engineersand project managers were recruited fromall over Europe to be trained and employedas localizers in Ireland.For most transla-tors,it was their first introduction not only to computers,but also to the concepts of software localization.Although Dublin in the late 1980s andearly 1990s was a very attractive place forlocalization experts,with many job opportu-nities and a strong social network,softwarepublishers began to doubt the validity ofthein-house localization model.Not only did newrecruits face a steep training curve,but therapid growth ofproducts sold internationally and the content explosion also created largelocalization departments that were difficult tosustain.Business fluctuations — very busy justbefore new product releases,very quiet after— contributed to this problem,as did thedifficulty ofkeeping translators in anothercountry for a long time because localizationreally wasn’t very exciting (imagine twomonths oftranslating on-line help files) andnot always well paid.Software publishers increasingly real-ized that localization was not part oftheircore business and should ideally be out-sourced to external service providers.One ofthe first companies to realizethere was a service offering to be built aroundthis need was INK,a European translationservices network established in 1980.INKbecame one ofthe first companies in theworld to offer outsourced localization servic-es.In addition to translation into all lan-guages required by software publishers,thisservice included localization engineering anddesktop publishing and,most importantly,the project management ofthese multilin-gual localization projects.
Translation technology.
INK was alsoone ofthe first companies to create desk-top translation support tools,called theINK TextTools,the first technology com-mercially developed to support translators.As a historical note,the present company Lionbridge was “spun offfrom StreamInternational,which itselfhad emergedfrom R.R.Donnelley’s acquisition ofINK,”said Lionbridge CEO Rory Cowan in 1997.In 1987,a German translation compa-ny called TRADOS was reselling the INKTextTools and a year later released TED,theTranslation Editor plug-in for TextTools.Shortly thereafter,TRADOS released thefirst version ofits Translator’s Workbenchtranslation memory (TM) product.TRA-DOS continued to establish itselfas theindustry leader in TM technology through-out the 1990s,boosted by Microsoft takinga 20% stake in 1997.Initially,TM technology could only deal with text files.Hardly any technology was commercially available for the localiza-tion ofsoftware user interfaces.Most soft-ware publishers built proprietary tools,which were tailored to their own sourcecode format and standards and used by their internal teams.Development ofthesetools was often quite
ad hoc 
and un-structured.As a result,early generations of software localization tools were usually quite buggy and unreliable.
1990s: An Industr1990s: An IndustryyEstablishedEstablished
Throughout the 1990s,alarge number oflocalizationservice providers were born,many ofwhich were little morethan rebranded translationfirms.For the IT industry,thesky was the limit,the globe wasits marketplace,and the local-ization industry followed close-ly in its footsteps.After the initial pioneer-ing efforts oftranslation com-panies adapting to the newparadigm oflocalization,the1990s clearly saw the establish-ment ofa true localizationservices industry.Software andhardware publishers increas-ingly outsourced translationand localization tasks to focuson their core competencies.The need for outsourced full-service local-ization suppliers was growing rapidly.Within a localization services compa-ny,localization teams would typically becoordinated by a project manager oversee-ing schedules and budgets,a linguist tomonitor any linguistic issues,an engineerto compile and test localized software andon-line help and a desktop publisher toproduce translated printed or on-linemanuals.A typical localization projectconsisted — and often still consists — ofasoftware component,an on-line help com-ponent and some printed materials such asa getting started guide.To localize a software application,localization engineers receive a copy ofthesoftware build environment,extract the
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A translator’s-eye view of XLIFF 
 
resource files with translatable text,preparetranslation kits and support the translatorsduring their work.Post-translation,theengineers merge the translated files with thebuild environments and compile localizedcopies ofthe software application.Thisalways requires some level ofbug-fixing,user interface resizing and testing.A simi-lar approach is taken to produce localizedversions ofon-line help systems.Thesource files,mostly RTF or HTML docu-ments,are translated,and a compilationand testing phase follows.Most on-linehelp systems and printed documents con-tain screen captures ofthe software,soincluding pictures ofthe localized softwareapplication can only be done once theapplication has been fully translated,builtand tested.These dependencies and many others have always made the managementoflocalization projects quite a challenge.
Consolidation and outsourcing.
Oneofthe developments that characterized thelocalization industry throughout the 1990swas
consolidation
.Localization serviceproviders merged with others in order to“eat the competition”or to add serviceofferings,to reach a wider geographicalspread — or they could merge simply because they had some money to burn.Thelist ofcompanies that were acquired seemsendless.From at least a dozen large multi-language vendors in localization,we arecurrently down to a handful,with the mainplayers being Bowne Global Solutions,Lionbridge and SDL International.Consolidation also manifested itself in the emergence ofa relatively standardproduction outsourcing framework.Thelarger multilanguage vendors (MLVs) tookon multilanguage,multiservice projects,outsourcing the core translation servicesto single-language vendors (SLVs),one ineach target country.SLVs normally workinto one target language only,from one ormore source languages,and either workwith on-site translators or contractors.Throughout the 1990s the localizationindustry further professionalized,includ-ing industry organizations,conferences,publications,academic interest and gener-ally increased visibility.Obviously,theincreasing number ofcompanies jumpingon the localization bandwagon resulted infierce competition and increased pressureon pricing.As a direct result,benefits andcost savings from the use ofTMs,forexample,quickly shifted from the transla-tor’s desk to the localization vendor andeventually to the customer.Today,nolocalization quote is sent out without adetailed breakdown offull matches,fuzzy matches and repetition discounts throughthe use ofTM database technology.
FrFrom TM to GMSom TM to GMS
TM technology plays a dominant rolein localization for various reasons.First of all,most software companies aim for“simship”(simultaneous release) ofall lan-guage versions oftheir products.This meansthat translation ofthe software product andsupporting on-line documentation has tostart while the English product is still underdevelopment.Translating subsequent devel-opment updates ofa product is then greatly simplified by the use ofTM technology.Moreover,after general release,most soft-ware products are updated at least once a year.These updates usually just add featuresonto a stable base platform,making it all themore important to be able to reuse — orleverage — previously produced contentand translations.Another type oftranslation technology commonly used in localization projects is
software user interface localization tools 
.These tools are used to translate software re-source files or even binary files and enable thelocalizer to not only translate but also resizeand test the user interface.Examples of localization tools are Alchemy’s CATALYSTand PASS Engineering’s PASSOLO.By the end ofthe 1990s the Internethad changed many things in localization,such as the introduction ofglobalizationmanagement systems (GMS).Riding thedot-com wave,various companies offeredrevolutionary new ways ofmanagingtranslation and localization projects,stor-ing and publishing multilingual contentand fully automating localization processes.Although this new technology had someimpact on existing outsourcing modelsand processes in the localization industry,it became rapidly clear that although aGMS could be useful for
content globaliza-tion
programs (for example multilingualWeb sites),the world of 
software localiza-tion
still required a lot of“traditional”expertise and dedicated teamwork.With Web sites containing more andmore software functionality and softwareapplications increasingly deploying a Webinterface,we can no longer make a cleardistinction between
software 
and
content 
when we discuss localization.The tradi-tional definition in which localization only refers to software applications and sup-porting content is no longer valid.Today,even producing a multilingual version of an on-line support system,e-business por-tal or knowledge base could be defined as a
localization
project.In other words,the turn ofthe century also introduced a new view towards localiza-tion and translation.
What Lies AheadWhat Lies Ahead
So,what is so different now in localiza-tion compared to what we got used to duringthe 1990s?Not as much as you might expect.Afterall,many localization projects fit the profilethat we’ve grown accustomed to over the past years:Windows-based desktop softwareproducts with some translatable resourcefiles,basic engineering and compilationrequirements,HTML files to use for the on-line help and possibly some product collater-al or manuals to be printed or published inPDF format.Even though these typical softwarelocalization projects may still be the bulk of the work for many localization serviceproviders,they are quickly being supplantedby new types oflocalization projects wherethe focus is on programming and publishingenvironments such as XML,Java and .NET.Also,content translation projects are now
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