IBM is a pioneer in both localization and globalization customization. I'm spending some time to find a website which can show us what is good practice. And here, let's browse IBM.com to see how large volume of information can be well-organized.
The latest announcement at Transco News announced the merger of Welocalize and Transco. There might be colleagues within and outside the localization industry who would like to know more about the merger and how it will bring something new to all of us.
As you might want to know that this is a new column of BetterLocalization. My colleagues named it "Global Website Review". Here is the second and last one before the "Global Website Review" criteria are formally published fresh and new, be patient, it's just within days, feel free to check the release at Transco News. After the release, this column might display different.
"I need an adapter. No, this doesn't work. It enables a US plug for foreign sockets, but what we need is using a foreign plug with US sockets. Can you help?"
1. Whether it is a turning point in societal evolution depends not only on the technology... but also how we use it! The web does give us lots more choices about how we organize ourselves.
When talking about global websites, we believe that they've solved the problem of "why do I need a multilingual website". Top global websites are user centered, customer focused, cost effective, and helpful to both customer support and global marketing. Now the question is, does your global website support your global demands sufficiently? Or put it another way, is your global web site serves separate locale as you designed, or intended to design?
Most businesses, if not every, are facing the problem of decreasing budget and human resources. At the same time, the increasing customer demands and quality requirements are never descending. High efficiency and excellent organizational performance is the only way to help us out. Then, how to keep a competitive edge by improving efficiency and performance? Will standards and models help?
We who are engaged in the language industry use the term localization every day but seldom, if not never, see it from a magazine out of our small world. That's why I was a little surprised when I find the word localization on the cover page of Harvard Business Review (HBR), issue April 2006.
Recently someone asked me whether the Chinese government allows a foreign business to wholly own a (localization) firm in mainland China? As this is not the first time I get such a question, I'd like to share the answer here and provide some information that might be helpful to companies who are interested in establishing an operation unit in China.
Complaints, negative TV reports, or even lawsuit… these happened simply because the companies didn't provide translations in Chinese while the consumers thought they should.
As stated in the official company web site Transco.cn, Transco is implementing PCMM (People Capability Maturity Model) over the organization. What is PCMM and what will it do for a localization service provider? In the competitive market, why Transco is investing in such a standard?
Running makes the antelope, thinking makes the man. We keep thinking and with this weblog, we share our personal
knowledge and thought with the localization community.