Sharing, centralization, consolidation, community, and diplomacy pegged as the watchwords for the linguistic New Year
Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/21/2009 -- What’s in store for the translation, localization, and interpreting industries in 2010? Market research firm Common SenseAdvisory announces the release of its industry predictions for the coming year, as well as a review of how it fared with its 2009 predictions. Common Sense Advisory’s research team summarizes the topwatchwords for the linguistic New Year as: sharing, centralization, consolidation, community, and diplomacy; predicting the following for2010:
1. Buyers and suppliers will find that “it takes acommunity. Driven by Facebook’s widely cited success in having the crowd translate its website, Common Sense Advisory’s analysts expect online communities to sprout like mushrooms after a storm. Even language service providers (LSPs) like Lionbridge will create communities around their technology.
2. Machine translation and translation memory buyers will assess shared data. With IT-centric TAUSTDA leading the way, a variety of commercial, semi-commercial,government, and free suppliers of shared translation assets will fightfor mindshare, data uploads, active users to download and rate quality,and reference studies — Asia Online, BigTM.net, EuroMatrixPlus,EuroTermBank, Linguee, OPUS, and translated.net.
3. The web becomes more worldwide with support for emerging languages. As the internet drives to its next billion or two users, companies will addmore languages and mobile phone access (”there’s a language app forthat!” to get there. Microsoft plans to add five more African languages. Wikipedia content shows up in 240+ languages for information consumers around the globe. ICANN’s multi-script support for top-leveldomains will make home pages in other scripts, well, homier.
4.Demand for interpreting services in Europe will grow. Common Sense Advisory’s research on the European language services market showedthat spoken language services comprised a small part of the overall market as compared to the U.S. market. Fueled by wording in the Lisbon Treaty and initiatives supporting individuals’ rights to receive interpreting services in criminal proceedings, interpreting services will grow throughout 2010. Expect to see more government tenders and increased competition in this arena.
5. The U.S. government demand for linguists will continue to surge. The Obama administration will place a stronger emphasis on diplomacy through effective multilingual communications in all defense-related, intelligence, andState Department agencies comprising the Interagency Language Round table. Assuming that ground operations in Afghanistan don’t eat up the entire budget, the U.S. military will dedicate more funds to supporting languages. The focus will be on increasing resources insurge languages such as Dari and Pashto.
The full list of predictions for 2010 is available at the firm’s blog, Global Watchtower http://www.globalwatchtower.com).
About Common Sense Advisory
CommonSense Advisory, Inc. is an independent market research firm committed to the objective analysis of the business practices, services, andtechnology driving translation and interpreting services, localization,and business globalization. For more information, visit http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com.
Contact :
Melissa Gillespie
Common Sense Advisory
Boston, MA
melissa@commonsenseadvisory.com
http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com