An Open Letter to the Localization Industry,

I am the Director of Sales for a well known provider of localization services. My company offers a very broad range of services that include strategic consulting, business process, website and software product localization, tools, and translation. I am writing to express my sincere thanks for all that you have done to create the current environment in what you choose to call the “localization industry.”

The “industry” is currently so fragmented, its vision and goals so disjunct, its players so isolated and contentious, and its standards so vague, that customers are very confused indeed. This presents me with the opportunity of a lifetime! I can waltz into a large customer, nod knowingly and sympathetically and sell a unified vision of localization based entirely upon my company's proprietary tools and unique offerings. A seamless package deal that locks them in.

I am addressing this note to the Director of LISA because LISA has advertised itself as a “nexus.” From where I sit, that assertion is correct but ironic. LISA is central but not perhaps for reasons they would like. The growing number of LISA offshoots - organizations whose acronyms are instantly forgettable and whose sole battle cry seems to be “We are not LISA!” - have further muddied the “industry” waters. My customers ask me which one of these groups to approach and I can dismiss them all as self-promoting upstarts and then sell them my own vision of the global future.

Localization Standards? Hah! When my customers ask which standards they should adhere to I really do chuckle. Then I am in a position to point out that no current standard is worth the rainbow-coloured ink it is written in. Since the standards are created by self-serving protectionist vendors (I carefully exclude myself, of course) they are nearly worthless. And since the standards are written at such an extremely high level if I am pushed by my customers I can always promise to “comply” without in any way jeopardizing my company's own proprietary technology.

So thank you LISA! Thank you LISAettes, near-LISAs and non-LISAs. Please continue the good work. Do not search for a common cause. For heaven’s sake do not unify and produce a truly standards-based industry. You would only succeed in leveling the playing field and force guys like me to compete based upon some absurd element like quality. I like things just the way they are!

Sincerely,
Isaac Bickerstaff