My Dear Friends in Technology,

Fortuitously, today’s preface to theThomasNet.com newsletter broached a subject that I want to write about in the MCAD Newsletters. When I use trial versions of some very sophisticated collaboration software it seems to me that one particular item has been overlooked. Suppose the team leader is in another country and doesn’t speak your language? None of the software programs I have seen so far have figured out how to get around that. A good project should not be dumped or suffer from a lack of good language coordination. Why no vendor out there, to my knowledge has addressed this, is beyond my level of understanding.

I am not judging the eloquence of the software because I am not qualified to do that. I’m sort of like an outsider looking into something that should have been seen by others who are more knowledgeable. How do I markup the drawing about something I see wrong or that I think could be improved when I cannot speak or write the native language of the team leader? “A picture is worth a thousand words” but that does not always hold true in technical matters. More importantly, why has no vendor embedded something into the software to link it to a translation site or a dedicated server, to cross the language barrier?

As a test, I used a few different collaboration software packages and went to the translation link http://www.bablefish.com and changed a markup note from English to Simplified Chinese by cutting and pasting the translation into the software. Most of the time this procedure didn’t work. I don’t know why it didn’t, perhaps it is that the software is built around its proprietary self and treats cutting and pasting from outside of the software as an influenza attack.

My only goal in stating this is to bring this issue to the attention of vendors that in today’s world of global business collaboration is extremely importance. There are a few ways to handle this problem either from within or from outside of the software with translation web sites. However, this in not a solution if the software does not allow cutting and pasting for markup purposes. Looking from the outside, I leave you with these thoughts.

Ps. I would appreciate your feedback on this and if you think I should pursue it.

Richard Williams
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