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BUSINESS FEATURE
MultiLing builds bridges to better communication
By GRACE CONLON
(July 25) - When Michael V. Sneddon, president of MultiLing, a Provo-based company, was planning his education, he had no vision of entering the field of translation of electronic documents. Coincidentally, he forged a strong background in engineering, law, computers, marketing, business management and languages - exactly the right mix for the business he founded 14 years ago.
MultiLing Corporation is located at 55 N. University Avenue, Suite 225, P.O. Box 1998, Provo, UT 84603-1998.
In a Journal Publications interview, Sneddon described his somewhat esoteric business, a business little known to the general public but recognized as a leader in its field by corporations around the world.
"Our mission," Sneddon said, "is to help people communicate with the world by bridging language and cultural barriers. Our technology helps improve the speed and productivity of translators."
Sneddon stressed their technology doesn't replace translators; it gives them access to glossaries and allows them to reuse translations through their Transit and TermStar products.
"Any company that distributes technical or marketing literature to the world needs it to be of extremely high quality - mistakes can be costly if translation isn't accurate," Sneddon said.
"A lot of the material in these technical documents is repetitive," he added.
Depending on the amount of repetitive text, Transit, a complete translation system, creates and maintains translation memories and preserves formatting throughout the translation process. It maintains this integrity through several built-in quality assurance features and cross-checking to keep terms consistent.
Transit works with all major formats, e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint; HTML, SGML, XML, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, Frame Maker, and all commercially usable languages. Transit can be configured to support other file formats.
Sneddon said, "We have what we call 'translation memory.' From an architectural perspective, it's not a database but you can think if it that way."
MultiLing translators use Transit to maintain these client-specific translation memories, glossaries and graphic libraries. As new projects are completed, MultiLing updates the memories during the final step of the translation process.
TermStar, another MultiLing product, generates and maintains the glossaries; any supporting graphic files are altered and stored via MultiLing's desktop publishing specialists.
GoldenEye is a tracking system MultiLing developed to track each project from beginning to end so the status of the job is known and can be reported on at every moment.
Regarding the translation process, Sneddon said "Our computer analysis finds exact matches in the translation - sections that don't have to be retranslated. This can save between 20 percent and 60 percent in translation costs and time."
"A real benefit is that the specific layout is preserved." he said. "Other companies usually have to start from scratch with any document that needs to be translated."
MultiLing's client-base holds many Fortune 1000 companies - Hewlett Packard, IBM, AT&T, Caterpillar, General Electric, 3M, Siemens-Nixdorf, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney; corporations with familiar household names. In addition, other very technical companies such as Nicolet Instrument Corporation, Caldera, Citadel Technologies, Zebra Technologies, et al are companies that have used MultiLing's services.
Sneddon said "If you can write it, we can translate it." This includes translating English into other languages and other languages into English from many sources - company literature, training materials, technical and support materials or other publications.
A major service MultiLing performs is to localize software by preparing it and its accompanying support literature to be used in another country. This service could include translating the online text, reworking the graphics, engineering the software to meet the technical requirements of the new location and adjusting the help system so it corresponds to the localized version of the product, and translating hardcopy documentation.
At present more than 20 people staff the company, professionals with university degrees in language translation, linguistics or a technology-related field. Many have master's degrees or PhD's as well as scientific and/or technical backgrounds; background knowledge in a specific industry; several years' experience in the translation industry including experience translating technology-related terminology and working with computer software.
Sneddon's work requires frequent trips to far-away places, touching base with the company's teams of translators and recruiting new members. He has lived abroad, in both Sweden and Spain; traveled extensively in the United States.
"A good translator," he said, "is a technical writer in his native tongue. We don't want to treat people as widgets any more than we would treat a lawyer, doctor, accountant or other professionals as widgets. We're trying to automate this process, which is a highly structured one that eliminates a lot of chance for error."
Because he is so involved with other languages, other cultures, he has developed a philosophy that proposes the planet's inhabitants will not become more homogeneous as communication among countries increases.
"Language influences the way in which we think and act," Sneddon said, " but actually, it's culture that influences language more than anything else."
For additional information concerning MultiLing call (801) 377-2000 or toll-free (888) 960-7827 or www.multiling.com.
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