When SDL acquired Trados in 2005, it inspired other developers of language software to leave the sidelines, improve their products, and advance the state of technology. With its purchase of Idiom earlier this year, SDL opened the floodgates of more innovation in technology and business models.

• Guarantees of independence. Borrowing language from the American Declaration of Independence, translation memory technology provider Kilgray stated that “all translation service providers are created equal, they have certain unalienable Rights, that among these are including Foundation, Operation and the Liberty of choosing the right Translation Technology Provider.” The company pledges its commitment to remaining independent, going so far as to implement a poison pill favoring its customers — Kilgray will return the full license fees to any LSP that buys its product if it’s subsequently acquired by a language service provider. Founder István Lengyel wants to encourage other independent language software vendors to take the same pledge.
  
  We also spoke with Across CMO Andreas Dürr who has been actively pushing his company’s independence: “Independence is an important differentiator for us to provide a comprehensive solution. Because we are privately held, we can make decisions based on a long-term view without regard to short-term shareholder value.”
  
  MultiCorpora’s CEO Pierre Blais told us that “there are no short, mid, or long-term plans to sell the business to our LSP clients’ competitors. Quite frankly, they are not good suitors — if anything, a large technology-only company with bandwidth and a large global client base that further extends the value of our leveraging technology would be a better dance partner for us.” And way back in 2005, CEO Josef Zibung absented STAR Group from the merger and acquisition fray that began with Lionbridge and SDL acquisitions that year.
• Open source as an option. As we reported last month, Welocalize decided to make GlobalSight an open-source project. While the language industry hasn’t been successful in previous open-source initiatives, there’s always a first time for everything. GlobalSight Ambassador joins a number of current efforts, including, FOLT, Okapi, Project Open, and TinyTM. Last month, Cisco hosted a LISA session on the future of global information management future that we keynoted. In the panel discussion that followed, several Idiom users speculated about the potential of open-sourcing Idiom. While we think that’s unlikely, the fact that corporate buyers will consider using open source for a system as comprehensive as translation management was eye-opening for some attendees.
• Purpose-built solutions. Both corporate buyers and LSPs tell us they are considering alternatives, including internal development. This trend seems especially strong among LSPs who feel nervous about depending on a competitor for technology solutions. Last week we spoke with ENLASO CEO John Watkins about his company’s development of the Okapi framework for linguistic pre- and post-processing tasks, and his investment in creating a broader community of users for open technology. Last month, text & form‘s CTO Thomas Ossowski briefed us about software that his company is building to meet his customers’ needs — a terminology manager, desktop publishing accelerator for PDF, and an upcoming comprehensive multilingual workflow system optimized for the needs of his clients. McElroy Translations has begun integrating commercial solutions such as Asia Online with its own internal development. McElroy’s strategist Bob Donaldson told us that the hybrid solution will include some custom .NET components, but will mostly be based on the ‘platform as a service’ capabilities of Salesforce.com. Look for other house solutions from companies like CrossGap, Elanex, and Lionbridge in our upcoming update to “Translation Management System Scorecards.”
• Your newest buddy. SDL has begun to invest in a plan that seems to follow our longstanding advice to split the company into 2 parts, language services and technology (see “SDL Buys Idiom: Now What?“). It reinvigorated its Enterprise Technology Division with the acquisition of Idiom and, last week, announced its LSP Partner Program, a multi-tiered technology partnership based on Idiom’s efforts in the space. We spoke with SDL Trados VP Keith Laska who told us that the company plans to work closely with LSP partners and will move toward an open API for integrating non-SDL applications.

How important is an independent software vendor to you? Are you ready for open source? If you’re an LSP, are you happy buying software from a competitor? Tell us what you think — complete our short survey on the importance of vendor independence We’ll present the results in an upcoming post.