Language Standards for Global Business
Vienna, Austria
December 14-15, 2006

Translation Technology acting in concert
Ziad Chama, Freelance Translation Technology Consultant, SDL/Trados, Germany

Translation technology providers usually claim that their tools are fully compliant with common industry standards such as TMX, XLIFF, TBX, etc. Some might go as far as to say that there is no reason to buy the competitor's product, as their software can open and write any files generated with the competing product just as well. After all, everything is based on clearly-defined technology standards. So, you might think. ..

However, reality has taught us that you are bound to lose leverage when opening files generated with product A in product B. Even if technology providers comply with standards, the way those standards are implemented in the different products is always slightly different. For example, have you ever tried to open a Word *.doc file in OpenOffice? To be sure, you can do this. However, but you will have to do quite some reformatting in order to make it look exactly like the original document.

Mixing translation technologies from project to project or even within the same localization project is never a good idea. Even when everything seems to be XML, TMX, XLIFF, etc., some unpleasant surprises might be lurking. This will make it difficult if not even impossible to deliver on schedule.