Shakedown in the translation tools market: We live in an increasingly complex world. Turn the clock back, and things were simpler. Five years ago, translation companies produced translations, and software companies produced software. Now, that distinction has blurred. Several major producers of translation tools have been bought out by the very translation companies that used to be part of their target market. In that sense, it is a little like a major airline buying Boeing or Airbus.

The trend started when translation company SDL bought translation memory vendor Trados. More recently, we have seen SDL buy first Passolo and then Idiom. Today, word broke that Alchemy (which, like Passolo, is a translation memory tool used in software localization) has been sold to a big translation vendor called Translations.com/Transperfect.

On the one hand, this can be good news. It can mean new investment in specialist tool development. On the other hand, it can concentrate a lot of power in relatively few hands. It promises to be an interesting time, and may well lead to translation companies exploring new, smaller, independent developers of translation memory systems, such as MemoQ. As Don DePalma says in his latest Global Watchtower article: "We think that this deal will cause other large LSPs to review their technology portfolios."

Best Practices for XML Internationalisation: A W3C working group has published a note on "Best Practices for XML Internationalization", and is seeking constructive feedback and comments. Please take a look at their report, and do give them any feedback you may have. The people who sit on these standards committees and who publish these reports and standards all do it on a voluntary basis, and because they care about our industry.

Trains and training: I'm attending a training event in London today, a one-day conference on Content Management Systems organised by the UK Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC UK). For any professional in the technical communications field, staying abreast of changes in technology and in best practice is essential, and I try and attend training events at least three or four times each year. What amuses me is the frequency with which I hit travel problems when attending these events. Today, there is a big question mark about whether I will be able to get a train home to Manchester this evening after some containers got blown off a train by high winds, blocking the West Coast Mainline. Fun and games!