There were several very insightful and provocative presentations on how companies are meeting customer requirements by crafting total solutions to meet the entire business challenge, not just the technical challenge. Tony Gray, Senior Director of Apps Product Translation at Oracle, in his top-rated presentation entitled, Stretching Sim Ship Boundaries, described how Oracle has developed a simultaneous development and internationalization model for its e-business software. With thirty languages and four million words in software strings being produced by a 5,000-person development organization, the challenge was enormous. Oracle did it by shifting to a new vendor relationship model, 100% automation and on-demand translation, rather than planned projects. After investing approximately US$ 750,000 over two years, Oracle's ROI is positive, and its language vendors are pleased with the new model.

Jean-Louis Gassée, the former president of Apple Products Division and now with Allegis Capital, opened the summit with a short discourse on the role of the GILT industry in supporting global entrepreneurship. The venture capital (VC) community has trouble with localization and globalization because of the time and money required. However, Gassée stated that they depend on the GILT industry to help smaller companies localize themselves in the most productive way to export their ideas and products.

Mark Davis, President of Unicode and Chief Globalization Architect at IBM, argued in his keynote speech that software globalization is often the opposite of what people think; rather than homogenizing cultures, it helps to foster diversity by protecting local languages. He claimed that we are now entering a new phase in software, moving towards releasing globalized products that will enable customers to plug and play different languages. For example, people will be able to switch their user interfaces from one language to another with the click of a button.

Members from various departments in the U.S. Government responsible for homeland security provided insights into their desperate need for support in meeting their mandate to sift through unimaginable amounts of data in various formats to meet what is perceived to be a terrorist threat in the U.S. Everette Jordan, Director of the National Virtual Translation Center, underlined the government's critical need by stating, "We will put more time, more money and more energy into language and language technologies than ever before."

For the rest of the summit, attendees focused on understanding customer requirements, with input from both the public and private sectors. With a majority of participants from client companies (more than 60%), people shared different methods used to meet the same challenges. A total of more than thirty-five plenary sessions, panels and workgroup discussions provided contributors the opportunity to discuss how they are building global solutions for their customers, as well as how to "do more with less" in today's economy.

Donald Barabé, Business Development Director of the Canadian Government Translation Bureau, argued that language services do not have to become a commodity. In his presentation entitled Better-Faster-Cheaper Localization - To be or Not to Be a Commodity, Barabé shared how his organization has converted from a per-word pricing scheme to an hourly rate, similar to that for other professional services. He also built a case as to why L10n is not a commodity and never will be.

Switching back to the private sector, during the panel discussion on Customer Requirements: Why Build Global Solutions?, panel members from Avaya, IBM, Logitech and Veritas agreed that upper management support is crucial to building global solutions. Without it, failure is almost guaranteed. They also pointed out that we have reached the end of the period in which it is acceptable for companies to ship first in English and then "fix it later." In other words, globalization is an architecture in today's world, not a feature. According to Helena Chapman, Manager of the ICU Development Team at IBM's Globalization Center of Competency, it is all about providing the right architecture for "pay-as-you-grow."

The "Does Size Really Matter?" panel moderated by Mark Homnack, CEO and Founder of SimulTrans, debated whether or not the size of a vendor really matters. Homnack summarized the state of the industry in terms of vendor status and reminded us that there are only three large vendors left after the consolidation of the past few years. These are followed by three to five medium-sized vendors and about 100 small/boutique vendors. Homnack estimated that total market size is approximately US$ 700,000,000 with half of this controlled by the "Big 3." All participants on the panel believed that size does indeed matter, but have chosen different-sized vendors for varying reasons

To capitalize on what was shared during this summit, two very important Special Interest Groups (SIGs) were formed: one for Homeland Security and one for Global Products. The first will focus on how to work with the U.S. Government in meeting its homeland security needs. The second will work on defining and promoting global product standards, with the goal of developing a "Global Product Seal of Approval" to certify software products.

We invite you to visit www.lisa.org where LISA corporate members can access detailed summaries of each session, as well as copies of presentations given during the summit.