A Global Get-Together Part II
Dublin was an excellent start, but we still had to experience the thrill of being in a more crowded space attending sessions on tons of different subjects to choose from.
We caught our flight and, in no time, there we were: London’s LocWorld!
At Localization World´s Hammersmith venue we had the chance to not only attend interesting presentations but also to visit the showroom. It was right there that you were able to sense the evolution, with many companies showing their latest software developments in terms of Translation Management Systems, workflow tools, MT engines, etc.—all the IT infrastructure needed to backup the steady growth of the industry.
There was also a plethora of translation vendors mingling with software developers.
In our previous post, TAUS Industry Leaders Forum in Dublin, we talked about the inexorable importance acquired by the automation process. At Localization World, audience turnout to the presentations makes me think that the industry’s interest has resulted in a shift from source content development and internationalization in preparation for a later localization towards the development of assets needed to speed up the conversion process into target languages in order to reach higher efficiency levels.
However, it is clear that, although there are clients like Tripadvisor with a demand for real-time MT translations for its users’ reviews, there are still others who will keep on looking for high quality. For instance, one of the sessions on legal translation served as a reminder that law firms in the U.K. need to translate legal content from the 70% of international litigations carried on in U.K. courts.
In any case, there is still a long road ahead! Long enough to keep expanding in a vertical with several different niches, needing different kinds of services, and that will still provide employment for its many different actors. This is certainly a relief in a world that is still fighting to come out of the economic downturn in many countries of our beloved planet Earth.
