SDL Trados Studio and the Translation Industry
A lot has been written about SDL Tradios Studio 2009, the new TM platform by market leading giant SDL. Few can deny that as a platform it combines a lot of the ground-breaking (at their time) characteristics of its rivals and predecessors (SDLX, Trados 7 and 2007, DejaVuX) in a single interface with many new features. Autosuggest (!), Multiterm at your fingertips, Translation Memory management just a few clicks away and many more.
Hence, it strikes as odd that most of the major translation agencies have not yet migrated to the new platform. Do they not want increased consistency (with Autosuggest)? Do they not want the ability to use multiple Translation Memories and avoid all the “importing”-”exporting” marathons?
It could be that everyone is afraid to take the first step. The industry needs a courageous pioneer to stir things up. At the moment, clients are still asking for legacy bilingual files (produced with older versions of Trados) and not those “weird” .sdlxiff files. And those few who have decided to migrate to the new suite, well …they have been doing so for quite a while now! Freelance translators seem more ready to try and test new platforms, even though their financial position is far weaker than that of agencies.
Many freelancers wait for their main clients to let them know when the migration will occur, and until then their bright new shiny SDL Trados Studio 2009 remains parked in the “Program Files” directory looking at the folder on top (“SDL International”) and wondering why it is still there!
I am not sure If I can give a definitive explanation as to why agencies hesitate to take this step, but I can make a few assumptions:
1) Some mid-size and smaller agencies may indeed be hesitant due to the high cost involved. Investing in SDL Trados 2007 (perhaps with 10-15 different licenses, which adds up to a significant amount) was itself a big step and they would prefer to wait a few months or even years before they repeat such an investment. Add to that the cost involved in Trados education and certification, and you have a valid argument.
2) Bigger companies with hundreds of service providers may be waiting for the majority of their translators to migrate and then make the move. While this is a legitimate approach, one has to point out that change starts from the top, i.e. agencies need to inform their translators of their intentions and even contribute to the cost of their migration. This might sound extreme, but the return on this investment will probably be geometric in terms of productivity, consistency, and quality.
3) SDL may have not sufficiently communicated the benefits of the new system to the big players. It sure gave the wrong signals by selling Studio 2009 as a combo with Trados 2007, mainly because the Winalign feature was not incorporated in the new platform. I am sure there are many more reasons as such an investment cannot be made overnight.
4) Some agencies may have already weighed the benefits and disadvantages of Studio and come to the conclusion that migrations would not be beneficial for them – again legitimate.
But what should a freelance translator do? Invest a considerable amount of money to upgrade to this platform or wait for the clients to decide? IMO, it is a useful investment and you can always convert files to ttx with the “old” Trados and translate them with Studio 2009. This surely complicates the project management aspect of your work, but it is counterbalanced by the increase in productivity, consistency, and quality.
