News

Transparent Language Broadens NT-based Translation Server

• By Scott Bekker
• 10/25/2000

Transparent Language previewed its Enterprise Translation Server 4.0 this week at Internet World in New York. The software is set to ship in November.

With version 4.0, Transparent Language offers 23 different language directions. Most of the new language efforts in the upgrade are in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian. While the majority of language directions are to and from English, several non-English pairs are supported: Korean to/from Japanese, Russian to/from French, and Russian to/from German.

“Up until this point, almost all translation available has involved to or from English,” says Charles McGonagle, vice president of marketing for Transparent Language.

Perhaps more important than the translations in this version, according to McGonagle, is enhanced integration with Microsoft Office.

“What we discovered as we talked to users was that they understood translations, but they didn’t quite understand how they could make it work in their environment,” McGonagle says.

Version 4.0 comes more tightly integrated with Microsoft Office 2000, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and FrontPage, than the previous version (3.1). New toolbars give users options such as translating highlighted text in place, inserting translated text before highlighted text or inserting it after highlighted text. The Office integration follows similar efforts by Transparent Language within the Lotus Domino/Notes environment earlier this year.

The server product starts at $25,000. – Scott Bekker