A Brief History of Localization From “mom and pop” to the "giants"

The industry that is now dubbed “localization” got its start in the late 1970s. At that time translators who had often been working independently or in academia began to form companies that could offer more comprehensive and professional language services.

These developing “language service providers” (LSPs) quickly expanded to offer much more than just translation. They became experts in managing increasingly complex projects, receiving original content from publishers, translating it through professionally trained translators with subject matter expertise, and proofreading and formatting the finished product.

With the help of newly available software tools, they soon expanded to offer design and publishing services for the translated content as well.

As the industry grew, LSPs began to embrace technology to improve services. The localization industry has by nature always been international, with professionals working in different locales around the world – the original "offshoring" business. So, naturally, LSPs were early adopters of computers and dial-up modems.

Translation memory (TM) and workflow management technologies began to appear in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They have since become standard tools for the localization industry.

From partnerships to acquisitions and mergers

Almost since the beginning, the localization industry has been marked by waves of business consolidation. The vast majority of the industry consists of very small companies, but as some companies grew, they merged or acquired others to offer a broader range of services for larger customers.

For example, Alpnet, Sykes, and Trados were acquired by SDL; Mendez, Berlitz, Planet Leap, and Bowne were acquired by Lionbridge. SDL and Lionbridge are now two of the largest companies in the language industry.

Today’s service-provider landscape

Today there are estimated to be more than 10,000 language service providers worldwide, with some estimates considerably higher than that. Most are still ‘mom and pop’ shops with only a few employees, but the industry has stratified into the following major types of service companies:

• Multi-Language Vendors (MLV). These tend to be the largest companies that work in many languages and markets. Most have global offices and employ a variety of technologies and processes to meet the demands of the largest customers.
   
• Single-Language Vendors (SLV). These companies range in size from quite small to medium-sized. They primarily deliver language services in a single language pair (for example, Russian-to-English, English-to-Russian). Many SLVs work for larger MLVs as subcontractors for a particular language or market.
   
• Regional Multi-Language Vendors (rMLV). These companies tend to cover regional areas of languages and markets, for example, Eastern Europe or the Middle East. In their region, they function as MLVs, but for clients outside the region, they may offer services more like an SLV.