Computer Aided Translation – CAT
MultiCorpora is a leading provider of multilingual asset management solutions that enable corporations, government organizations and language service providers to cost-effectively translate global information and streamline their multilingual communications. MultiCorpora empowers language professionals by delivering innovative software solutions that drive market segment leadership and enable its customers to differentiate themselves from traditional TM users. MultiCorpora’s multilingual asset management solutions promote the leveraging of core business competencies and increased end to end production efficiencies for faster turnaround and greater volumes.
Its flagship product, MultiTrans, is an innovative tool that combines MultiCorpora’s unique TextBase TM technology with its best-in-class Terminology Management System. MultiTrans customers use their full-text repositories of previously translated documents to produce more accurate translations by eliminating ambiguity of terms through a context based workflow which, unlike traditional sentence-based TM tools that recycle whole sentences, matches text strings of any length.
With offices in North America and Europe, MultiCorpora leverages the expertise of its impressive client base to the benefit of its worldwide user community. The Translation Bureau of Canada along with the majority of departments within the Government of Canada, international organizations such as UNESCO, and corporations such as Ford of Canada, Sobeys, Kraft, HSBC and Pfizer have selected MultiTrans as their multilingual asset management solution.
The evolution of MultiTrans follows four distinct phases:
Research and Development (1994-2000)
The origin of the MultiTrans vision extends back to 1994 when, as the manager of one of the largest and most advanced multilingual publishing and document management operations in North America, MultiCorpora founder Gerry Gervais attempted to increase the productivity of translation activities by implementing Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) technologies. Since the available technology proved inadequate, Mr. Gervais recognized the need for a different approach to translation support, terminology and language management; one that applied to all types of content, provided context, and did not require prohibitive up-front set-up and investment. The enormous challenge was undertaken to develop the technology that could deliver on that vision. The foundation of the initial (flagship) product began to take shape as these years represented a period of full-fledged innovation where every member of the organization was focused on the corporate vision of developing solutions that would improve the productivity and efficiencies of language professionals worldwide. The vision has continued to stand strong.
Product launch and Industry Recognition (2000-2003)
MultiTransTM was launched in 2000 and the product’s had an immediate positive and large-scale impact on the entire multilingual industry. Translation and terminology management teams in corporations, governments and translation agencies embraced the new technology. They immediately recognized the value of MultiTrans’ unique approach which increased quality and consistencies and maximized efficiencies while at the same time, reduced workloads.
Working closely with the many early adopters, MultiTrans expanded into a scalable, enterprise-wide platform that could handle industrial-strength databases, client-server architecture, web access and Unicode support for all languages. During this banner period of acceptance and support from the many industries and sectors, MultiCorpora received several distinguished award including the Excelor Award for outstanding achievement in innovation and the R&D and the ClientSide Excellence Award for Translation Memory Tools.
Aggressive Growth (2004-2006)
After succeeding with its efforts to generate quick returns on investments for its customers, MultiCorpora also delivered a quick return to its stakeholders. Having proven itself as a solid and viable commercially successful organization, senior management decided to expand in order to support a fast-growing local and international customer base.
In 2004, the activities related to JIAMCATT (Joint Inter-Agency Meeting on Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology) and its presence at United Nations paid off as MultiCorpora increased its number of customers to twenty-nine.
MultiCorpora continued building on the synergies of many clients to maximize their productivity gains and in 2005, MultiCorpora introduced MultiTrans 4. The launch of this version unveiled our proprietary and industry-leading alignment technology which offers unmatched flexibility and offers the African Union Commission the ability to seamlessly reference past translations according to their translation assignment. This new version was designed to respond to the translation and terminology management needs of large organizations by providing efficiencies for translators in the area of text alignment quality, ease of use, flexibility and web access. The results experienced by our customers were impressive. Actual results in productivity gain surpassed 20% on all types of content and these results were typical not only at the translation stage, but also at the terminology, revision, and authoring stages.
In 2006 MultiCorpora retained the services of Irosoft Inc, a software development firm based in Montreal, to develop an XLIFF editor that adds an interactive translation editor for handling additional document format such as XML , HTML, FrameMaker, etc. 2006 also saw MultiCorpora win two of the most significant contracts in the company’s history which led to a doubling of users and a spike in sales. MultiCorpora also opened a European office in Brussels to better serve the growing European market and continued to spread its roots with new government clients in Canada, Switzerland, and Germany.
Impressive Numbers fuel MultiCorpora’s Growth Strategy (2007- …)
In recent years MultiCorpora has stood tall as the vendor with the most momentum. In the past year alone, many translation agencies and well known international corporations and organizations have chosen MultiCorpora as their preferred multilingual asset management solutions provider. To respond to the large number of new clients, MultiCorpora has doubled its personnel and is in a perpetual hiring mode. In line with this growth strategy, MultiCorpora continues to reinvest a great portion of its revenues back into R&D and is also generating a great interest from partners. More recently, in 2007, MultiCorpora announced a strategic alliance which saw them integrate MultiTrans with the leading provider of Translation Business and Workflow Management software to deliver a comprehensive Workflow and Globalization Management System designed specifically for LSPs, governments and global corporations. This new offering combines the strengths of MultiTrans’ unique TextBase TM multilingual asset management solution with those of Plunet BusinessManager. Another partnership announcement in 2007 shared news on MultiCorpora’s alliance with the makers of the first commercial quality assurance software for the translation industry. This partnership extends our value proposition and further improves the translation quality of MultiCorpora’s Customers.
Today, MultiCorpora boasts over 350 customers and over 4500 licensed users. These are phenomenal numbers and represent incredible momentum when you consider that in only 2004, MultiCorpora’s customers totalled 29! The driving force behind the company’s success continues to be the complete solution offered by MultiTrans 4 which makes the complete management of multilingual assets possible.