Apart from a renewed focus on content localization, we have also seen
various other important developments over the past few years, such as the
growing importance of open standards. Examples of open standards in the
localization industry are Translation Memory eXchange (TMX) and XML
Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF). Many TM tools support
TMX for the exchange of TM databases between different tools, and XLIFF
is being adopted by companies such as Sun Microsystems and Oracle. A Sun
Microsystems manager recently said, “XLIFF allows our interaction with
translation vendors to be much more efficient. There is less need for
translators to become engineering experts in the many different source file
formats that are currently being used—SGML, HTML, MIF, RTF and the
numerous software message file formats. Instead, XLIFF allows translation
vendors to concentrate on their core competency: translation of words.”
Back to basics?
Does the