LISA: It is easy to understand the technology complementarity behind the merger - linguistic processing and workflow management joins forces with scaleable globalization management technology. Who stands to gain most from the merger?

TRADOS: The customer. This is a highly customer-centric merger. We came together because customers need a well-integrated technology platform to help them manage the complex problems which multilingual content poses. We realized that TRADOS couldn't do this on its own; we needed Uniscape's skills sets and strengths to complement ours.

Using the integrated platform, enterprise customers will at the same time be able to interact more closely and effectively with agency and freelance service providers and appreciate their specific contributions to the content localization value chain. By providing the same sort of technology for all customers large and small, we will simplify and amplify business in the industry.

The merger will also bring concrete benefits for our freelance users. By equipping themselves with TRADOS technology, translators can become more productive and commercially successful as the growth in use of TRADOS brings more standardized workflows to the translation production process and an increase in TRADOS-enabled translation volumes.

We believe the deal works beautifully. TRADOS has a proven record of delivering to customers; we're strong in Europe and Asia and we bring greater access to the localization vendor and professional freelance translator marketplaces. Uniscape has Global 100 customers in the USA and some powerful GMS technology.

Our underlying aim is to remove inefficiencies from the process of managing multilingual content for global and multinational enterprises, and to provide solutions that will outperform those created by people who simply do not have as much domain expertise and track record of technology innovation as TRADOS.

LISA: Let's look at your markets. Where do you see customers who are responsive to the technology underlying the end-to-end multilingual content management chain you are now integrating? Is anyone ready to make a substantial investment in US$ 250,000+ platforms to manage multilingual content?

TRADOS: In terms of the enterprise market, we are looking at customers who are growing increasingly interested in CMS but who haven't yet used much technology in their localization process. We're talking, for example, about corporations with a large population of websites and a broad set of other content types that can gain significant bottom-line value by managing their multilingual content more effectively. We are now seeing a number of Global 1000 companies launching specific initiatives to manage critical multilingual content at an enterprise level. This suggests an immediate market for our product set, which addresses the whole translation supply chain from freelance translators to global corporations.

And, yes, we know the market is ready! GMS is a very recent technology. But TRADOS has a long track record and understands the finer details of the issues involved in managing multilingual content - translation technology has been its prime focus since it's founding. We have been listening closely to customers and we now see pockets of demand emerging for GMS. We believe this market will really take off in 2003 and our merger with Uniscape positions us ideally to meet its requirements.

In terms of vertical markets, our products are designed to focus on industries where there substantial translation volumes and a high rate of repetitive content. This covers, for example, a large number of manufacturing industries where standard documentation is still an issue - and not just web content. At this point substantial demand is emerging from the pharma, financial services, international organizations, hi-tech and automotive sectors.

But these categories are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a much-quoted figure that only 10% of all translatable content is actually being translated. We see our technology as forming one (albeit vital) component in a much broader CMS/CRM marketplace.

LISA: Will you provide just products or also services? How about consulting?

TRADOS: No to core localization and translation services. Service providers themselves will benefit from this merger of technology leaders and from the extended product set on offer. Our policy will not be to move into the localization services space: we shall rely on agencies and their outsourced suppliers to do that work, which is what they do best. Where we can bring benefits is in enabling localization service vendors to avoid problems associated with proprietary and non-compatible systems. TRADOS will continue to offer an 'industry standard' technology platform that will help make all players along the value chain more productive and more profitable.

When it comes to consulting, implementing a system on a client's site involves a mix of consulting and systems integration activities, some more generic, some domain-specific. Traditionally, localization-related consulting has not been performed by the big six. We already have relationships with some of these providers but these consultancies cannot yet offer deeper services around multilingual content and localization management. What we plan to do is develop our partnerships in this area, educate them and support their practices in working with these systems and processes and then to encourage them to develop this business area with their clients.

LISA: How do you think large localization vendors will respond to the news?

TRADOS:We have very good relations with these players, all major customers for us, and we have discussed this move with them. Very few of the key players are maintaining any substantial technology development efforts themselves, preferring to stick to their core competence areas, which are in the provision of high-value internationalization, localization and translation outsourced services. A small number are still mixing technology and service plays but we believe this approach cannot succeed over the long term.

We recognize that our success will depend partly on the support of the larger vendors and we will be aggressively pursuing closer partnerships with each of these. This move should encourage all players in the chain to succeed by sticking to their specific areas of competence - ours is in developing market-leading language technology solutions that deliver very specific business benefits. And by combining our strengths with best-of-breed service partners, we expect to make it easier for end customers to translate all that valuable language content within enterprises that we know remains untranslated today. This merger really promises a win-win-win scenario for all players on along the value chain from end customer to vendor to freelance translator.

LISA: TRADOS and Uniscape together raised some US$ 60 million in 2000/2001. When will you see ROI on this investment? What's your schedule for delivering on the promises of the merger?

TRADOS: First of all, there is a whole raft of work to be carried out to integrate the core technologies. Top of our agenda will be integrating our existing translation memory platforms. We expect to deliver the first deeper integration by Q4 of this year in parallel with piloting some new translation production automation technology, coded-named "TRADOSflow", which is in development. At the same time, TRADOS is a growing company and already generating profits. Uniscape is at an earlier stage of its business development cycle but equally successful. By joining forces we are therefore creating a strong, healthy, profitable company capable of sustaining growth into the future.

One of the benefits of the merger is that we can also consolidate our joint R&D resources. This will in turn enable us to innovate. We are doubling the size of the R&D group and the technical skills from Uniscape are one of its main attractions. This year we shall be devoting a total of 22% of revenues to our R&D agenda. In the short term we shall be ensuring seamless product integration. In the longer term, we will continue to deliver new products and solutions to all markets.

LISA: How easy do you think it will be to converge your cultures and markets without losing that vision of the seamless technology platform?

TRADOS: Although we come from apparently different contexts, our cultures are in fact very close. We are a truly global company of approx. 200 people. We leverage the expertise of many regional offices so we are global in both origin and outlook and that is very important. Both companies are global suppliers for their customers, and we have a similar mix of nationalities. Our investors also come from a broad range of backgrounds. Sameer Gandhi of Sequoia Capital and Joe Prang of Mentor Capital (ex-President & COO of Aspect Development) will also be joining our board, which itself comprises investor interests covering three continents.

LISA: And what about the future strategy of the combined company?

TRADOS: We now have probably the best senior management team in the industry - people who have been around and know this space from the inside like Jochen Hummel, Howard Schwartz and Marc Christen. Moving forward, I have tasked Dave Lawson, our CTO (david.Lawson@trados.com), and John Egan, our CMO (john.egan@trados.com) to work closely in further developing our future product-market strategy. In addressing this challenge, they will take their primary inputs from our customers - this is key. And I am confident that the new senior team here at TRADOS can execute a winning strategy

LISA: Last but not least, exactly what business are you in? How do you ultimately define your new company?

TRADOS: We provide a language technology platform. This platform delivers business process efficiencies and it supports the entire multilingual content management and localization production value chain. This merger enables us to deliver the kind of point improvements and overall interoperability that the industry needs - both for end customers and their suppliers. The combined company will have a major influence on the development of the localization industry itself and on bringing valuable improvements to all players along the chain.

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For more information on TRADOS, please visit www.trados.com.