There ain't no such thing as original sin at SDL!

Exhibit #1 memoQ graphic

Exhibit #2 memoQ graphic

Sometime last year, memoQ Translation Technologies Ltd., the software artists formerly known as Kilgray, aka mQtech, released their "Trend Report 2019" including the graphics above and more. I have studiously avoided blogging about the trend report up to now, because enthusiasm comes hard for a document that was clearly prepared by an industry outsider (consultant) with little understanding of issues faced in the translation sector, so that some of the "questions" proposed and discussed are really quite irrelevant to the present and future state of translation.

But Kilgray... oops, mQtech is the de facto technology leader for advanced desktop and client/server translation environment management, usually introducing the truly innovative tools for improving translation processes and quality so that others like SDL can copy them at some later date. This, of course, doesn't account for everything, for example the underappreciated bilingual review tables of Déjà Vu, which probably resulted in one of the biggest boosts for memoQ when that feature was adopted in version 4.2 before it was copied by so many others later, including the flawed Fluency, SDL Trados et alia. The "monolingual review" feature of memoQ, which allows edited translations in certain formats or portions thereof (to avoid mangling formats of parts which have not changed) to be re-imported to facilitate TM updates, is one example of memoQ leading the way for SDL (who implemented that feature about two years later) and others, as is the long history of optimization for speech recognition with Dragon NaturallySpeaking (with editing controls unavailable when that tool is used with most other CAT tools), which lately has gone farther in the somewhat bleeding edge but interesting implementation of speech recognition in Hey memoQ.

There is a long history of SDL looking to its main competitor to find its way in the darkness of translation sector tools competition. But one rather obnoxious advert that keeps cropping up in social media feeds makes it clear that the leadership of mQtech extends beyond mere technology for SDL:

These days, translation memories are better forgotten!

It seems that in the horrors of preparation for Brexit, UK-based SDL is unable to find original service providers internally, domestically or internationally to produce the artwork needed to market their questionable technology and concepts. What we have above is the same thing in terms of style and construction as we see with mQtech, but in green.

This gives me no little worry, really, because the underlying symbolism is deeply disturbing. Range and Green... Brexit... I fear that the situation between the two leading tool providers for translation technology is degenerating into a situation like we find at the Irish border:

It's an ugly situation. With Cromwellian arrogance, SDL has appropriated the colors of the political underdog, ravaging not only the translating Irish countryside with its confusing pathwork of features, but exporting the conflict internationally as dark powers so often do. And mQtech, unfortunately, bears Unionist colors into the battle at the wordface, though the symbolic interpretation of that is anyone's guess. We can only pray that some compromise, some peace accord can be achieved before the looming Brexit deadline, when things at the border and at translation conferences around the world may escalate into the Unthinkable.

A wise man once said, "SDL should copy memoQ's features or its artwork, but not both", but I would argue that in the current political climate, doing the latter is a bad idea in any case!