On the heels of its GCMS 5.0 software release, Sajan today announced the hiving off of its software group. The new entity, Sajan Software Ltd, is based in Dublin Ireland.

First off, GCMS 5.0 is the latest version of Sajan’s highly-rated translation management system (TMS), previously classed as a “house” solution but now available as an enterprise platform – without use of Sajan as a translation vendor (hence the now separate software company). The new version boasts a new translation workbench written in Adobe Air, a cross-platform runtime environment for stitching together rich internet applications. The workbench includes built-in terminology management with its own term workflow and versioning. GCMS 5.0 also adds a SwiftKnowledge-sourced business intelligence (BI) package that lets users query segment and term histories so that they can tell who touched a particular translation unit. We flagged BI as a major issue in our 2008 report on “Evolution and Revolution in Translation Management,” and vendors such as Sajan and Across have begun adding the feature set.

Now, about the new corporate entity. Sajan Software Ltd. will be headed by software industry veteran Vern Hanzlik, who rose through the ranks at Stellent (now part of Oracle), eventually serving as its President and CEO in the gangbuster years of the dotcom boom. Hanzlik joined Sajan in 2006 to head business development, but quickly assumed the role of chief marketing officer. Heading up a software company returns Hanzlik to his preferred role, marrying technology direction and development operations with sales and marketing.

Sajan is the second LSP this year to separate R&D and development from the parent organization. In the spring of 2009, LTC broke out its software group as a new company, Agile Web Solutions. Beetext, Plunet, and XTRF also had origins in translation services companies, with varying degrees of murkiness in the origin stories offered to outsiders. Of course, there’s also SDL which has long straddled the technology-services divide.

Technology or services — or both? In the case of Sajan, the company decided that the origin of the software is material to its brand. Rather than seek differentiation in the name, the new company inherits the moniker of its parent. Sajan Software will own the intellectual property, including one existing patent and another pending.

Like Athena, born fully grown from the head of Zeus (not to mention fully clothed and armed to the teeth), this new company arrives with deals in the pipeline and existing customers on support contracts. Not the least of these is the Sajan global services unit, a mid-tier LSP with operations in the U.S., Europe, and a new office in India. We expect to hear more saber rattling in the coming months.