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Hospital Spending on Interpreting Services


In our recent sizing exercise for the interpretation services market, we surveyed organizations in many commercial and governmental sectors (see "Telephone Interpreting: The Demand Side," Jun08). We found that a significant portion of the total interpreting market originates in healthcare, including roughly one third of all telephone-based services. In the course of analyzing responses from dozens of hospitals located in the United States, we noted some interesting trends related to interpreter services spending.

Banishing Back Translations


Back translations are sometimes touted as a way for customers to "test" the quality of a translation service, but they give little insight into the capabilities of language service providers (LSPs). Here, we explain why globalization service buyers (GSBs) should agree to banish back translations - for good, and for their own good.

Certification Fixation in the Interpreting Field


Nurturing a seed sown in May 2007, Language Line Services (LLS) made public this week its support for a pilot of a national medical interpreter certification test by May 2009. What provoked this interest in certifying medical interpreters? Why is the telephone interpreting pioneer parting with its own precious dollars to fund these efforts? We have a few ideas.

Interpreting Creeps toward Automation


While the majority of spoken language services are still provided in person, the sheer enormity of the market demand has led to the development of remote interpreting through telephone and video-conferencing technologies. Interpreters depend more on machine-based assistance, engaging in what we call computer-assisted interpretation (CAI), with each passing day.

India beyond English


Google aims to break the Indian market open for web marketers, first with search in five Indic languages, and now with Google Translate. In this Quick Take, we give you the rundown on how the "pajama effect" plays out in India -- what languages web marketers will need in order to reach consumers at home in this vast, if incipient, online market.

A Quick Take: Through the Looking Glass of Translation Pricing


In Q4 2007 we compiled survey responses from 292 language service providers. Nearly 60 percent of the respondents hailed from Europe and 26 percent from North America. The data shows a modest drop in prices for most languages since 2004, the last time we surveyed the industry on translation pricing, but Scandinavian languages bucked the trend and rose during this time period.

Landing International Visitors on the Right Page


Much has been said about the benefits of a global gateway, where visitors can find country or language websites. Common Sense Advisory contends that forcing visitors through a gateway impedes usability. Rather, we advise companies to employ geolocation and/or content negotiation. But global gateways cannot be written off just yet, since they remain a necessary fallback. In this Quick Take, we tease out best practices from the common practices based on examinations of 282 global websites.

Asia Online Stakes Portal Success on MT


Machine translation software developers continue to innovate, with most commercial MT and open source providers pushing new releases and features. In late 2007, Asia Online entered the market with a business model more focused on driving traffic to its portal than selling software. We recently spoke with the company’s CEO Dion Wiggins about the opportunity driving his business plan and the technology that Asia Online brings to the table.

Geolocation Lifts Global Customer Experience


Visitors to your website immediately find relevant content - as long as they live in the country of your corporate headquarters and speak the default language of your site. If you are based in the United States, with the largest domestic online population (for now), congratulations! Fifteen percent of the world's online population immediately gets relevant content at your site. But what about the remaining 85 percent? In this Quick Take, you will find information on geolocation and content negotiation techniques that will improve online customer experience for visitors coming to your site from other countries and speaking other languages.

SDL Buys Idiom: Now What?


SDL announced that it acquired Idiom for US$21.7 million in a deal that has far-reaching implications for the market. This short report provides a detailed analysis of the benefits and challenges to SDL; advice to corporate buyers of Idiom; recommendations to LSPs who feel stranded by the deal; 4 scenarios about the future of the translation business; and a reiteration of our long-held recommendation to SDL to break itself into 2 companies.

Translation Joins Mainstream Workflow


A few content-centric software firms have begun offering translation support built into their mainstream workflow. With this support packaged up and integrated with the rest of their solution, companies and their LSP partners have the option of bringing translation earlier and deeper into the content life cycle or managing it after the fact with their traditional translation memory tools.

ProZ Connect!


By offering collaboration features and living “in the cloud,” Proz.com taps into the global nature of the translation industry and acts as a clearing house for all the players in the language services community: freelancers, agencies, and final clients.


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