As we come to the end of 2019, The SDL Trados team is taking a fond look back at the biggest events, product launches and milestones that we have achieved over the course of the year.
It's certainly been an eventful 2019 - filled to the brim with exciting events, innovative new products and updates which we have been delighted to share with you all!
So without further ado, let's take a look at SDL Trados' top highlights of the year, and how these exciting developments will continue to benefit all levels of the translation supply chain as we enter the next chapter of 2020.
1. The future of Machine Translation has arrived
In November, we launched SDL Machine Translation with Neural Machine Translation (NMT) technology - the most sophisticated machine translation model to date!
The recent development of our NMT engines has elevated the capability of our machine translation to be used for content that previous incarnations of this technology (rule-based and statistical) would never have been considered for in the past.
SDL Machine Translation is available right now in SDL Trados Studio, so you have the luxury of opting to use NMT alongside Studio’s other translation assisting tools. Every SDL Trados Studio account holder is entitled to 500,000 characters of NMT every month at no cost!
Read our interview with Daniel Brockmann to learn how SDL Machine Translation slips seamlessly into your translation workflow.
2. SDL Trados offers free Translation Memory training
In March, the SDL Trados team was delighted to be able to offer free translation memory training as part of our 35th birthday celebrations.
Website visitors were treated to training sessions which took them from the basics of how a translation memory works, right through to how to gain maximum leverage from your translation memory as it grows. These training sessions were also available in 10 languages!
Did you miss them? Don’t worry – we’ve saved them for you here.
3. Now you can manage your business, as well as your translations
When managing a translation business, there are various day-to-day functions that take you away from your core focus of delivering high-quality translations. Tasks such as keeping track of jobs, managing customer and vendor details, reporting on margins, creating and sending invoices, etc, can be challenging - so we created SDL Trados Business Manager!
Released in May, SDL Trados Business Manager takes away the pain of these daily business tasks by providing an environment dedicated to keeping all of the above simple and efficient. It is also fully integrated with SDL Trados Studio so you can now manage your translations, and your business, in one place. Read our product brief for more information.
4. The freelance translator’s road to success
From April to August, we ran a series of 12 free webinars, designed to support freelance translators and help them realise their potential as professional linguists.
These webinars proved to be incredibly popular, receiving almost 8,000 registrations! Below, we’ve listed the most popular webinars of the series for you to view at your leisure.
5. Our project management solution with a difference
SDL Trados GroupShare, our easy-to-use translation project management solution, just got better! With the release of SDL Trados GroupShare 2020 in October, users gained access to a host of new features, including the new enhanced reporting module and advanced online editor.
The new reporting capabilities eradicate the project manager’s need to populate and retain time-consuming spreadsheets to keep on top of projects, and the new option to choose either the basic or advanced online editor means you can tailor the editing environment to best suit the needs of the reviewer or translator.
To learn more about SDL Trados GroupShare 2020, read our dedicated blog.
We also followed the progress of two LSPs who introduced the use of SDL Trados GroupShare and documented how it affected their businesses - learn more about their stories here.
6. Trados turns 35!
Trados (Translation & Documentation Software) was first established in Stuttgart, Germany in 1984 and reached its milestone 35th birthday this year!
To celebrate this fantastic achievement, we hosted a special 35 Years of Trados Festival event where our website visitors were privy to a host of free resources, training materials and competitions. We also threw a “Celebrating 35 Years of Trados” party, fittingly, in Trados' home town of Stuttgart.
In addition, we wanted to learn more about our customers and so took our 35th birthday celebrations to our roadshow events, where we asked SDL Trados Studio users why they chose our software and their favorite features. See what they said here.
7. All aboard for our spring/autumn roadshows
Our spring and autumn roadshows are always big occasions for the SDL Trados team, and in 2019 these events were further heightened by Trados’ 35th birthday celebrations. Our spring and autumn roadshows took place in 18 and 19 cities consecutively, with over 2,500 language professionals attending to meet their local SDL teams and network with fellow linguists.
Attendees at our networking and training roadshows were able to mingle with hundreds of other translation enthusiasts; freelancers, LSPs, and corporate organizations, and learn about all the latest features and updates in SDL Trados Studio. On-site training and support was also provided, as well as fun social games to break the ice and help get everyone talking.
There was a strong focus on the SDL AppStore at the 2019 roadshows, with our speakers explaining the benefits available to SDL Appstore users and providing live demonstrations of some of the appstore's most popular and widely-used apps.
Are you interested in attending one of our free roadshow events in 2020? Keep an eye on our live events page where we will be updating all our upcoming events and venues in the new year.
8. Going global at 40 events worldwide
The SDL Trados team took part in 40 different conferences and trade shows over the course of 2019, including the ATA60, tekom, Expolingua, Elia, Locworld40 and Gala 2019 Conferences. We joined as sponsors, exhibitors and presenters at various levels, and had the pleasure of being able to support our university, association and LSP partners at various industry events throughout the year.
Are you thinking of attending a conference or industry event in 2020? Check our live events page regularly to see the ones our team are attending and we’ll see you there!
9. Our Academic Partners reach new heights
Our Academic Partner Program supports universities that teach translation technology by offering support, expertise and training resources for the CAT tool component within their language courses.
Over 5,500 student licenses were given out between September and December alone in 2019, with our final figures expected to be more than in any other year! We also welcomed 35 new members to our Academic Program this year – taking the total number of our Academic Partners to over 600 universities worldwide!
Are you interested in becoming an Academic Partner? Learn how we can support your institution here.
And into 2020….
Whilst we are incredibly proud of everything we have achieved this year, we feel it is important to note that at the heart of every event, launch and update is you, the customer.
SDL may be a large company, but we are made up of language loving people who want to improve the translation experience for other language lovers and connoisseurs. We hope that we have served you well this year and that our new innovations, product updates, training events, downloads, etc, have truly helped you on your ever-evolving translation journey.
How do you feel about our events, improvements and updates in 2019? Do you have any ideas on how we can further enhance our software and services as we enter 2020? Please let us know your thoughts here as, together, we can get the whole world talking.
