Nearly a decade ago, Symantec took a number of key decisions about how to manage its Web site translation processes when its previously-distributed localization activity was centralized. At the time, there were no exemplars of how to do this, so the team had to invent its own approach. This marked the start of a process that has led to one of the most efficient workflows for multi-stream localization. The Symantec localization hub offers services to other in-house customers, ranging from customer service through the legal department to marketing and more. Fred Hollowood (see picture) has been leading Symantec's translation automation activities.
TAUS is publishing a report in January 2009 that looks at how Symantec has achieved this, what choices were made, what targets were set, and what problems were overcome.
One key to the company's success has been its relentlessly practical focus on tracking down process inefficiencies and seeing how far they could be removed through automation. For example, in 2005 it examined the use of rule-based MT for fast-turnaround virus alert translations and customer self-service content. This immediately raised the issue of improving the source to assure quality output, so it ran an experiment with controlled authoring, and found that MT quality can be improved, thereby reducing the overall cost of post-editing for publication quality documentation. A further effort at reducing the time and cost of post-editing is currently being taken by developing a novel approach to using SMT on the MT output.
Interestingly, Symantec also sees efficient terminology management as critical to cost-reduction and process acceleration, and is currently focused on developing approaches to handling distributed terminology in ways that ensures brand consistency, source accuracy and translation quality in a unified way.
This whole multi-year process is based on achieving specific targets, which means that metrics have proved vital at every step. The initial plan was to reduce the cost of translation to 30% of the previous (un-automated) rate and reduce overall time by 50%. In large part, these targets have been met, and the TAUS report looks at what the next steps will be for the localization team as they face new challenges from the translation technology market.