In June 1989 we stopped Language Technology because we could not find enough readers. Were we the only ones who saw the future looking so bright. Maybe there was no emerging language industry. Translation remained just the cost of doing business, a problem and not an opportunity. The few language processing products that came out on the market only reached a small number of users. Language, the most important vehicle for business communication, did not appeal to the business mind. Maybe because it was taken for granted that people would get accustomed to English.

In 1994 the world was hit by the excitement over the 'Information Highway'. Language Technology, silent for a few years, had come back as WIRED, the magazine for the global village, and became an enormous success. Free flow of information across all national borders represents an estimated 39 Billion Dollar market in Europe alone in the year 2000. Business and politics seem to agree that there should be no limitations, no restrictions, no red lights on the Infobahn. But what about the language barriers and the cultural thresholds. Is the non-existing language industry still considered to be an implicit sector that will adapt itself automatically to the needs of global business. Fortunately there are signs of a growing awareness of multilingualism. Using a public phone in the USA, it is good to see that AT&T offers the menu option 'Language Line'. Compuserve offers automatic message translation. Deutsche Telekom work on a complete range of linguistic services under the name 'Lingo'. Translation companies in Europe are getting organised and set up their own certification plan. And Europe On-Line have announced a translation feature on their product.

ITALICS was formed with the mission to evangelise the challenges and opportunities created by growing global business communication. Our role will be to stimulate further awareness of multilingualism and to help businesses in finding the solutions for cross-culture and cross-language communication. Knowing that there is not a clearly identifiable language industry, ITALICS is faced with the difficult task of finding the users and the suppliers of multilingual communications services and products. Supported by the European Commission, ITALICS is organising the first annual conference on global business communications from May 28 till 30 in Rotterdam. ITALICS 95 expects around 450 attendees from different business sectors and from all European countries and the USA. In addition to the annual conference, ITALICS will undertake activities like organising user forum meetings for different industry sectors and promotion of the industry of translation and language products and services. ITALICS will also provide consultancy and publishing services in its domain of global business communication.

The Second Announcement of ITALICS 95 is inserted with this LISA Newsletter. For more information you can contact Lidy Groot Congress Events at +31 20 6793218.

Jaap van der Meer
Oosteinde 9
1483 AB De Rijp
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 2997 3429
Fax: +31 2997 4165