Case Study: Supertext
Success, driven by technology
As early as 2008, three years after its foundation, Supertext was already one of the top 100 technology start-ups in Europe. To date, a wide range of companies, from sporting goods manufacturers such as Puma, to global organizations such as UNESCO, are avid users of Supertext’s services.
They order and manage their text and translation jobs online and benefit from state-of-the-art technology in terms of translation memory, termbase and online workflow connections.
Web-based, open source, flexible
Before working with translate5, Supertext mainly used tried, tested and proven desktop applications to process translation jobs. However, unlike locally installed software, translate5 has the advantage of allowing extensive and in-depth integration with other systems due to its flexible API. The clean communication at interfaces and the simple usability of a software that does not require local installation have a positive effect on the stability of the system.
Version conflicts and other hurdles can be prevented, which saves the companies own IT team valuable working time. Translate5 was thus easily integrated into Supertext’s in-house browser-based project management system and client portal, and could also easily be made available to freelancers.
“When the system provider uses the same API that is provided to the client, you are in a much better position!”
— Rémy Blättler, CTO at Supertext
Seamless integration
Smooth communication and the ability to integrate are not only integral demands placed on a companies human workforce, but are also an uncompromising requirement for software. Companies of all kinds often work with a multitude of different programs, which often have to communicate with each other across systems and have to be coordinated with each other. Once various programs have been put together with time and effort to form a workable mosaic, it is all the more annoying when a circumstance later requires having to change the provider of a service.
Language service providers the size of Supertext naturally work with many locally installed software products that they have grown to depend and rely on. As is often the case, these were definitely powerful, but their in-depth integration into one’s own translation management system (TMS) was costly. When some of the former partners were about to shift their focus away from language service providers and towards industrial companies, the existing system would have had to be changed completely. To meet this challenge, a flexible, quickly integrated translation software was sought — and found in the web-based open-source tool translate5.
Teamwork meets functionality
Initially, smaller competing applications were considered as alternatives to translate5. However, these only offered translations of online applications and were not the efficient translation software Supertext was hoping for.
Translate5, on the other hand, proved itself by displaying outstanding teamwork together with Supertext and its numerous, excellent features.
“It’s an intuitively designed, browser-based translation software, developed by a team that excels at collaboration.”
— Rémy Blättler, CTO at Supertext, on the question of what convinces him about translate5.
Superpowered by translate5
Supertext is using the integration of translate5 into their own system to expand their offering. Functions such as Instant Translation, Local Review and MT+ are all based on features of translate5 and would not be feasible without its integration. To save the client time and money, it is possible to log in to all instances of Supertext and translate5 via Single Sign On.
For smaller, urgent orders, the workflow can be automated, which is not only practical but also saves time due to faster processing. Translate5 Visual is used for the real-time display of the translation in the layout, and thus enables the client to have direct insight into his project at any time.
“Our Instant Translation and Local Review features are tightly integrated with translate5 and would not work without the direct collaboration. For us, those are two big milestones that we owe to translate5.”
— Rémy Blättler, CTO at Supertext
