Both companies strive for long-term relationships with their customers. Establishing a working relationship takes time and requires investments on both sides. Now that Techtra and CCN have joined forces both companies can offer a much wider range of services. I would like to give a few examples of what CCN has done in the past to keep their IT customers satisfied and what Techtra/CCN now offers to their clients.

It is my opinion that the way translations are carried out will change radically within the next few years. But I am a fervent advocate of the human touch. I do not believe MT will ever replace human translators where high quality translation is concerned. I think that the human translator using TM and MT and cooperating with experts in various application fields will be the winner of the game.

There is, of course, a difference in the approach within IT companies and other industries. With regard to IT and IT related businesses, the translator's job will gradually become that of a project manager and QA expert. Therefore, we offer our customers not only the actual translation but complete project services.

One of our customers writes programs for public buildings that control everything from the air-condition to the display of departure and arrival times. They wanted a simple translation job done (or so they said): Several manuals translated into three different languages. The software was to remain untouched. When we enquired about the target group we discovered that the program itself was two-tiered with occasionally different surfaces for operators on the one hand and not quite so skilled users on the other. This means we had to adapt the text which was also available as on-line help accordingly. At the beginning, we did not have any intention of doing a QA job in addition to the translation, but this is exactly what we did (after the customer gave his OK).

By using translation memories and setting up cross check intervals we could make the translation consistent even when the source was not. Our skilled translators knew when to localize items and when to leave them alone. Technical questions were only asked once and then discussed within the team.

Another example: We test translated products for various companies. Not only do we check for translation consistency but also for software functionality. Some time ago we tested an application for host/workstation communication. We discovered that the question displayed on screen was the equivalent of 'Do you want to erase the file?' instead of 'Do you want to copy the file?'. It was not an incorrect translation - this string was invoked incorrectly due to a German special character which had not been taken into account during programming.

Many users I have talked to have told me they did not like some of the examples given in their program helps. When I looked into the matter I found that either those examples had nothing to do with everyday life in the target country or a file name might have been offensive. E.g., any statistical program that uses minority group examples in the American version should have these examples localized. Of course, customizing examples means changing every reference to them throughout the product. This can be difficult since the translator may not have all the source/target materials available. Occasionally, the customer decides to expand the software or the publications with additional material later - without checking for occurrences of the above mentioned examples.

A great number of the words used in IT contexts in the German language have been implemented or even invented by us. IT translators should therefore be much more than just very good translators, they must have computer skills and feel at home in at least a couple of application areas such as finances, telecommunication et al. It is (an unfortunately widespread) misconception that the cost of IT translation can be drastically reduced. Tools may make translation and localization faster but the increasing complexity and interfacing capabilities of applications require more and more expertise on the translator's side. for more information contact