ShadoCMS Connector To Cut Translation Costs by 20%

By David Roe | Published May 29, 2009

A new connector has just been unveiled between Straker’s web content management system, ShadoCMS (news, site) and Argo Translation, a US website translation company. The connector will allow ShadoCMS users tap into Argo’s supply chain management system and provide translation cost estimates.

Early estimates by Straker suggest that users will be able to save up to 20% on translation costs just by managing the translation supply chain efficiently.

The Connector

The connector provides a system whereby Argos is automatically notified when new content within the Web CMS is developed and needs to be translated. It will also automatically provide a cost estimate before starting the translation process thus giving the user more control over what tasks are carried out.

Without the client’s approval, no projects will be initiated.

ShadoCMS Translation Management

Third-Party Partnerships

This is not the first time that Straker has teamed up with third parties to provide more efficient translation services in a localization market that is getting increasingly competitive as companies look to global markets for new business.

Last October, ShadoCMS teamed up with Across Systems’ Language Server to deliver a new interface that provided automated processes from web content creation to translation management, publishing and handling of dynamic multilingual content. In this case, the partnership promised to deliver savings of above 60% for companies that manage large-scale translations of dynamic websites.

It seems clear that when Straker launched v8.5 of ShadoCMS it had these kind of partnerships in mind as its translation management system allows integration with third party translation services.

Amongst those that it is compatible with, apart from Across Language Server, are web services and gateways provided by eTranslate and Google.

Other services can also be configured with existing systems and new services can be easily configured with a TMS API enabling developers integrate and customize any third party translation system.

Multi-Lingual Features in ShadoCMS v8.5

As it stands ShadoCMS has a wide range of multi-lingual features that enables third-party integration.

These include:

Any given page can be displayed in many languages
When a page is updated in one language, content editors/translators for the other languages assigned to that page are notified and can update their language's pages
Search is enabled in the selected language when a user is browsing the site
Metadata is language specific for each page
Realtime viewing of languages when editing content
Integration with Translation Management Engine which prevents automatic, and often inaccurate, translation of content. This allows for easy intervention by human translators.

Money For Quality Content?

Content management author and consultant Gerry McGovern last year suggested that some companies were deliberately reducing the quality of the content of the primary language on their website so that would be cheaper to translate into secondary languages.

Maybe with this simple connector Straker has provided part of the solution to this problem by allowing companies accurately predict content translation costs.

If, as they claim, clients can save up to 20% in costs then this is a product that should stir considerable interest. However, there is no guarantee that the savings made will be recycled back into providing better quality content.