The translation industry has undergone a paradigm shift every decade since 1980, but none was as big as the one we are facing now. We are entering the Convergence era: automatic translation will be a utility embedded in every app, device, sign board and screen. Businesses will prosper by finding new customers in new markets. Governments and citizens will connect and communicate easily. Consumers will become world-wise, talking to everyone everywhere as if language barriers never existed. It will not be perfect, but it will open doors and break down barriers. And it will give a boost to the translation industry, which will be chartered to constantly improve the technology and fill the gaps in global communications. In this interactive opening session Jaap van der Meer zooms in on the choices we are facing and the decision factors that help us make planning for an uncertain future opportunistic and profitable.

1. THURSDAY,
22
May
/10:20
–
10:50
Planning
for
an
Uncertain
Future
Jaap
van
der
Meer,
TAUS
TAUS
ROUNDTABLE
2014
22
May/
Moscow
(Russia)

2. Planning for an Uncertain Future
TAUS Round Table, Moscow, May 22, 2014
www.taus.net

3. Agenda
Agenda
} Translation Technology Landscape Report
} What it means for enterprises, LSPs and governments: dilemmas and strategies
} Questions and answers

4. Translation Technology Landscape Report
Table of Contents
} Evolution of translation industry
} Types, Categories and Models of Technologies
} Trends
} Opportunities & Challenges
} Machine Translation
What we’ll talk about now
} Evolution
} Trends
} Opportunities & Challenges

5. The Evolution till Now
This slide may not be used or copied without permission from TAUS

6. Evolution to Come
From theTAUSTranslationTechnology Landscape Report (January, 2013)

7. The
World
Around
Us

8. We
live
in
a
2me
of
hyper-­‐globaliza2on
§ Trade
integraIon
§ Last
2
decades
75
of
developing
countries
are
catching
up
with
economic
fronIer
§ World
trade
is
growing
§ From
stuff
to
fluff
§ DemocraIc:
openness
is
widely
embraced
§ Criss-­‐crossing
globalizaIon
§ Inequality
in
naIons
is
growing
Peterson
Ins?tute
for
Interna?onal
Economics

9. Growth
comes
from
the
next
billion
users
Only
1
out
of
every
3
people
can
go
online.
Why
aren’t
more
people
connected?
Devices
are
too
expensive.
Service
plans
are
too
expensive.
There’s
no
mobile
network
to
connect
to.
Content
isn’t
available
in
the
local
language.
Awareness
of
the
value
of
internet
is
limited.
Availability
of
power
sources
is
limited.
Networks
can’t
support
large
amounts
of
data.
Together
we
can
remove
these
barriers
and
give
billions
of
people
the
power
to
connect.
h_p://www.internet.org/
h_p://www.google.com/loon/

10. ZeGabytes
of
informa2on
are
wai2ng
to
be
translated
in
1,000+
languages
Linguis2c
diversity
is
the
new
reality

11. What
does
this
mean
for
the
transla2on
industry?

12. WHERE ARE FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, IBM AND
MICROSOFT TAKING US?
TRANSLATION AS A UTILITY
02 August 2010
Transla2on
Becomes
a
U2lity

13. Transla2on
Goes
Mobile

14. Transla2on
Becomes
Datafied

15. Transla2on
Becomes
Wearable,
Implantable
...
Transla2on
Becomes
Speakable
...
...and
Conversa2onal..

16. 21st
Century
Convergence
Luxury
Publisher-­‐driven
transla2on
industry
From
10,000
customers
who
buy
transla2on
as
a
‘luxury’
product
to
6
billion
users
who
consider
transla2on
‘free’.
Mobile
Real-­‐Ime
Personalized
Datafied
Embedded
New
payment
models
Good
enough
ConInuous
+
1,000
languages
Transla2on
ShiYs
Gears
Innova2on
Invaders

17. Together
We
Know
More
We
Know
Be_er
Is
the
Transla2on
Industry
Ready?

18. Ø Translation technology converges with search, speech, knowledge
management
Ø Functional convergence across departments, supply chain, as MT in
particular is increasingly embedded
Convergence
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19. Open or Closed Translation Future
?

20. Drivers and Inhibitors
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21. What
does
this
mean
for
enterprises?

22. Enterprise SWOT Analysis (2010 – 2011)
S W
O T
• High leverage from Translation Memories
• Well established process and management
• Quality inconsistent (local flavor missing)
• Lack of flexibility in landscape, reactive rather
than creative
• Quality review is slow – bottleneck
• Opening new markets with MT
• Engaging with users & communities
• Convergence with video and speech
• Search engine optimization
• Translation of user generated content
• Use of mobile
• Content personalization
• Locked in to vendor base
• Not scalable to expand quickly
• Urgent requirement to support new markets
• Inability to ensure quality
• Opportunity loss due to lack of personalization
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23. 23
Clients
MLV’s
In
country
offices/partners
Distributed
translators/authors
4
to
30
vendors
10
to
40
languages
100’
to
1000’s
translators/authors
Vendor
Management
Project
Management
Quality
Assurance
Transla2on
Memory
Account
Management
Resources
Management
Quality
Assurance
Project
Management
Transla2on
Memory
Resources
Management
Quality
Assurance
Project
Management
Transla2on
Memory
Quality
Assurance
Transla2on
Memory
Cascaded Supply Chain
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24. Content Disruption
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25. Innovation Dilemma
S W
O T
• High leverage from Translation Memories
• Well established process and management
• Quality inconsistent (local flavor missing)
• Lack of flexibility in landscape, reactive rather
than creative
• Quality review is slow – bottleneck
• Execution on innovation fails
• Opening new markets with MT
• Engaging with users & communities
• Convergence with video and speech
• Search engine optimization
• Translation of user generated content
• Use of mobile
• Content personalization
• Locked in to vendor base
• Not scalable to expand quickly
• Urgent requirement to support new
markets
• Inability to ensure quality
• Lack of corporate awareness of new locales
• Opportunity loss due to lack of
personalization
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26. 20th Century Translation
Top-down globalization
Export mentality – pushing out
One big world
1. One translation quality fits all
2. Selecting locales – limited languages
3. Counting words – owned content
4. TM is core
5. Project-based translation
6. Cascaded supply chain
7. Publisher-driven
8. One directional
This slide may not be used or copied without permission from TAUS

27. 21st Century Translation
Bottom-up and top-down globalization
Information is omnipresent – people are connecting
Many big worlds in one small planet
1. Quality differentiation
2. Long-tail of languages
3. Zettabytes of content–
owned, shared, earned
4. Data is core
5. Continuous translation
6. Collaborative translation
7. User-driven
8. Multi directional
This slide may not be used or copied without permission from TAUS

28. How far are you on the journey of “eight things to change”?
Implementing an Enterprise Language Strategy
From: One translation quality fits all To: Quality differentiation1.
From: Selecting locales – limited languages To: Long-tail of languages2.
From: Counting words – owned content To: Owned, shared, earned3.
From:TM is core To: Data is core4.
From: Project-based translation To: Continuous translation5.
From: Cascaded supply chain To: Collaborative translation6.
From: Publisher-driven To: User-driven7.
From: One directional To: Multi directional8.

29. What does this mean for
language service providers?

30. Planning for an Uncertain Future
Three questions:
1. Will machine translation take a big role in the translation industry or not?
2. Do we have to fear that translation will become a free-for-all service?
3. Will the closed (competitive) or the open (collaborative) business models
prevail?
How to minimize crisis-driven change and instead pursue
opportunity-driven change
Yes
No
Don’t know

32. What
does
this
mean
for
governments?

33. Human
Language
Project
CollaboraIon
between
business,
government
and
academia
worldwide
Think
of:
ü the
Human
Genome
Project:
a
$3.8
Billion
investment
in
sharing
data
about
the
human
genome
drove
$796
Billion
in
economic
impact,
and
spurred
growth
in
the
life
sciences
industry.

34. Transla2on
is
Becoming
a
U2lity

35. MT
as
the
New
Lingua
Franca

37. Ingredients of Human Language Project
The Human Language Project consists of (at least):
1. Fearless sharing of language and translation data (speech and text) in all languages and language
pairs, not hindered by outdated copyright law. European legislators must modernize copyright regulations
on translation data. (See TAUS article published in January 2013)
2. A library of translation, language and reordering models covering all languages and a wide scope of
domains to help fast-track and fine-tune the development and customization of machine translation engines.
3. A translation quality evaluation platform to help assess, benchmark and predict the right translation
quality for different content types and different purposes of communication.
4. A library of language tools – such as parsers, chunkers, lemmatizers, taggers – to assist service and
technology providers to improve and customize their solutions.
5. Common translation web services API’s to ensure that all services and technologies work seamlessly
together.

39. This slide may not be used or copied without permission from TAUS