We’re always struck by the low incidence of CAT tool purchase and usage among freelancers. Every translator should be using one, but the cost, complexity, and annual upgrade typically turn them off. Instead, most buyers of computer-aided translation tools are language service providers who lend licenses to their freelancers and subcontractors on a per-project basis. When the project is over, the license reverts to the LSP — and the freelancer is left empty-handed. Well, not exactly empty-handed. When he’s not working for an LSP, a freelancer is left to his own devices for TM, which all too often is an Excel spreadsheet or Word file. This problem is even worse in less economically developed countries where the hundreds of dollars that a copy of SDL-Trados or even Atril Déjà Vu is out of reach for the average freelancer. Even buyers in wealthier economies struggle with the annual upgrade model adopted by some CAT tool vendors.

What are the alternatives? Some companies have sidestepped traditional TM solutions by developing their own tools, while others have integrated products from companies like Kilgray and XML Intl. However, we’ve been advocating a different model for translation memory — free or very nearly free. We’ve long suggested a US$99 price point, more recently defined a free gmail-like offering, and have often recommended open source. The US$99 special threatens Atril’s or SDL’s commercial business, Lingotek offers free use up to a point, Across has a free Personal Edition, and LSPs like Elanex and Lionbridge to date have come forth with gmail-like products, but only their employees and subcontractors can use them.

This week we met with 3 companies that promise to make translation memory available to more translators – and advance the cause of community translation and, in one case, open source, as they do so.

• TinyTM tiptoes into the market. We met with Project Open’s Frank Bergmann who showed us open-source TinyTM. From a feature/function perspective, this CAT tool should meet the needs of many translators. From a GNU GPL licensing perspective, it will hit the low- or no-cost price point that is required for broadening the use of TM among translators. We’ll write more about TinyTM in an upcoming Quick Take on translation memory.
• Elanex adds community support. VP of Project Strategy David Currie told us about ElanexCROWD, a layer built on top of the in-house translation management system (TMS) that the company currently offers. ElanexCROWD enables collaboration with community members — the “crowd.” Elanex will offer its hosted technology without the requirement to buy its translation services. It has beefed up its workflow automation module to support large numbers of users working in parallel and introduced a number of other innovations to enable crowd support.
• Lionbridge opens its platform. Two years ago we suggested that Lionbridge make its in-house Logoport translation platform available to anyone, not just employees and contractors working on Lionbridge’s jobs. The company’s CSO and General Manager for its localization business Paula Shannon chose Berlin, home of the infamous Wall, to tell us that the company plans to open its back-end. She said that Lionbridge recognized the changing dynamics of the market place, especially around trends such as collaborative and community translation, social networking, and the next generation of web functionality. Lionbridge will meld the cloud with the crowd. Expect to hear more from us (and Lionbridge, of course) in the coming weeks about pricing and the timetable for community (soon), decoupled services and technology, and even LSP support (at a price, later this year).

These bullets are obviously just the headlines. What’s interesting is the effect that competition — current and future — is having on the translation technology sector. As we observed after SDL bought Trados, market competition heated up. With SDL’s purchase of Idiom, market demand that had orbited around Idiom’s independent software offering had to go somewhere. Meanwhile, freelancers and potential community translation participants were still looking for solutions. Elanex and Lionbridge are LSPs hoping to reinvent themselves around more agile, open offerings while TinyTM has set itself to supply translation memories to individuals and organizations with multilingual needs. All 3 face the challenge of marketing their offerings more effectively than any previous TM offering has.