DAVID: Why create a new translation system?
ANITA: We are going to celebrate our fifth
anniversary in March, and we’ve already had success on the market, but we are
still new to many people! We created Wordbee because of the potential that the
cloud has to help people collaborate and share resources. Really, we’re a cloud translation solution.
When
everyone is working on their own desktop tool, you have to be at your computer
to work. Our vision is to provide great cloud-based tools at a good price. You
can work anywhere, and your translation work is always accessible, private and
safe in the cloud.
DAVID: Can you identify any problems with
existing CAT which you could solve?
ANITA: We have solved a number of problems
already. One problem was that two people could not access the same document, at
the same time. With Wordbee, two or more people can jump in and collaborate in
our browser-based CAT Tool. This creates a use for our commenting/notifications
tool.
We also
try to make ourselves compatible with other tools. You can export translations
and/or memories to other tools, and you can also work on files from other
tools, for example TTX.
Otherwise,
it’s about the linguistic technologies and ease of use, and we get high marks
in both.
DAVID: How do you intend to fit in the
market with the existing CAT products?
ANITA: At the level of the LSP or Agency, we
already fit in. Also at the enterprise level. At the level of translator and
small LSP, we recently launched a new package called Freelance Entrepreneur.
Our basic Freelancer package includes our CAT tool, translation memory,
invoicing, scheduling, integrated terminology database, and lots of other
things, but it’s not free. It’s very good, but not free. Our Freelance
Entrepreneur package gives freelancers the basic package, plus project
management and the ability to create teams, helping them win a place as a niche
LSP when they get a chance. We are hoping that freelancers will find value in
that kind of solution.
DAVID: What kind of CAT tools are generally
used in Luxembourg?
ANITA: In Luxembourg, there is a need for our
technology, so we do have some important contracts here with the government.
That being said, our customers come from all over the world! As far as
translators go, it looks a lot like the rest of the world, just smaller!
DAVID: What are your plans for the future?
ANITA: As far as developments go, there is
currently commenting in the CAT tool, so you can comment on a segment, and you
can have team members notified of your comment. Which works. But we would like
to expand that functionality to make it even easier to communicate when you are
translating on a team.
DAVID: Can you talk about your software
briefly?
ANITA: Sure. It runs in your browser, and as a
freelancer you can manage your invoices, prices/fuzzy matches, word counts, and
finally make the translations. The CAT tool includes integrated Google
Translate, Reverso, and Bing dictionaries, as well as the IATE terminology
database of official EU translations. You can comment on segments to come back
to them, or for other team members, and you can preview the documents or even
websites when you translate. Version history is easily available, hot-keys,
advanced settings… you name it. Last, it does all document formats, and is
compatible with other tools. You can upload/download memories and/or
translations. You can even download a translation, make it in Word, and upload
it back into the CAT tool.
DAVID: What do you expect to see generally
in the CAT industry in the near-future?
ANITA: Cloud. More cloud. It’s just so much better
to share a space and to share resources than to have everything separate.
DAVID: What is the impact of non-European
languages such as Chinese on CAT?
ANITA: We actually won a nice contract with Nikon
Precision Inc. last year, and they chose us because we handled Japanese
characters and character sets without any problems, and because we have
complete project management, but our Asian language work was a real investment
for us. I think that the Asian market is something like 12% of the total market
right now, but it will likely continue to grow, so we want to make sure that
our system is seemlessly working with Asian character sets.
We are
planning to have a Japanese interface for our entire system at some point in
the near future.
DAVID: Where can we find out more about you?
ANITA: We’re on the web at http:www.wordbee.com,
and you can also find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’re at quite a few
conferences as well, so come see us!
