So says Tim Bray. And he would know; he helped invent it. Tim’s post is a very nice “where are they now” that gives credit to the interesting collection of folks who worked very hard on XML in the early days.
Hat tip, Dave Winer.
Day: February 11, 2008
FatWire Software announced that it has acquired Future Tense Solutions, its Australian-based reseller. Prior to the close of the acquisition, Future Tense had exclusive rights to sell and distribute FatWire products throughout Australia and New Zealand. With this acquisition, FatWire gains a presence and direct access to customers in the region. Nigel Trinca, managing director of Future Tense, assumes the role of vice president of FatWire Australia and Future Tense co-founder, Bill Prescott, also joins the company. Future Tense Solutions was founded by a team of former Open Market colleagues who worked with FatWire’s product, Content Server. http://fatwire.com
Integration versus Acquisition, that is. Certainly the latter does not preclude the former. And we expect that it will most certainly not.
SDL and Idiom are making a strategic industry announcement with this move, with both obvious and subtle impacts on both the translation and content management industries. Most obvious is the influence it can have on the impact of integrating workflows, a year-long discussion we’ve having with the Gilbane community. Bringing more visibility to the Global Content Lifecycle and hopefully, more conversation on adding value throughout is a positive event. Ramifications on the state of content management interoperability, LSP neutrality, and market uptake for Idiom’s deep investment in the SaaS approach will be more subtle impacts, which will be important for our community to understand.
We’ll keep you posted as always, but note today’s facts:
- This is not SDL’s first foray into merging the translation and content management technologies, demonstrated by May’s Tridion acquisition and the more recent investment in Trisoft, strengthening an already “deep” partnership albeit with no public announcement. Tridion caught the attention of marketing content management professionals; Trisoft should have caught the attention of techcomm content management professionals. Idiom will capture the attention of both.
- As we discussed in Gilbane Boston 2007, organizations that understand the impact of multilingual communications on efficiency, brand, and revenue are moving globalization strategies upstream to “bake in” quality at source content creation. One of my favorite quotes during our Quality at the Source session was from Richard Sikes from the Localization Institute, who reminded our audience that “the whip cracks loudest at the farthest end.”
- The acquisition announcement will trigger more conversation on topics included in our 2008 Globalization Wish List, in particular the idea of “closing the gap.”
See our post on the main Gilbane analyst blog. And stay tuned.
SDL continues to execute its growth and expansion strategies with today’s announcement that it has acquired Idiom for approximately $22 million US. The current plan is to operate the Idiom business as an autonomous unit under the direction of Idiom CEO Mike Iacobucci.
The acquisition raises all kinds of questions, of course. Idiom is one of the companies with big potential to bring innovation to the language services industry, which has been ripe for change for some time now. More resources to execute could mean more value for customers sooner. Will the Idiom technology (and SaaS offer) reach its full potential as an agent of change under SDL? What about the impact on buyer choice — how will the acquisition affect companies coming into the market? Stay tuned for analysis of these and other key questions coming out of today’s news.
