Dr. Tom's Independent Software Reviews

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General Conclusions:

As none of the reviewed software applications proofed to be a total lemon nor absolute superior to their competitors, there is no simple answer to the question of which single product would serve you best. In addition, the value of such tools varies greatly with your individual needs and circumstances. The first thing you have to answer to yourself is the question, if you are positive that you will only localize software and never accept any task to translate other kind of data. If this is the case, you should consider to buy one of the specialized tools for software localization: CATALYST, PASSOLO or RC-WinTrans. If in contrary, software localization is only a small fraction of your translations or the software localization also requires to translate larger text corpuses such as help files, manuals, documentation or web sites, you are much better of choosing a general translation memory solution such as TRADOS or TRANSIT.

Another variable in the decision process are the preferences of your clients: If, for instance, you anticipate to translate a lot for one of your clients and those guys want you to use a certain software, you would be ill-advised to buy another tool and risk loosing that client. It is a matter of fact that besides personal likes and dislikes, once you've got used to any of the reviewed tools they will all increase your productivity and consistency. In software localization, your clients choices can also determine the file format you have to handle: binary files such as EXE, DLL or OCX - or RC files? In the first case, you can use any of the three reviewed products, whereas PASSOLO can not handle RC files. In contrast to this - PASSOLO is the only of the three specialized software localizers which can save back translated EXE files on a Windows 9x or ME system.

If your decision is not influenced by the choices of your clients, there are still several other aspects to take into consideration which can be approached by the following questions: Did it take you years to master your word processor? - Do you have terrible trouble finding files on your computer? - and - Do you have a crisis every time you have to install a program?
If you answered yes to all these questions, you might have problems using Alchemy CATALYST as a specialized software localizer and STAR Transit as a general TM solution. You should instead have a look on the demo versions of PASSOLO or RC-WinTrans and TRADOS, respectively. On the other hand, if you're a experienced computer user and are fine messing around with tags in all their glorious forms, you should seriously consider Transit or Alchemy CATALYST, respectively. Both are by far the most powerful applications in their group but do not necessarily glitter by being easy to learn or use.

Finally, I was told, there are people out there, for whom price does matter. In the product group of general TM solutions, TRADOS is about 3 times as expensive as its competitor Transit - a difference which is not justified by more capabilities but inflexible marketing structures - a draw-back which was partially compensated by the new marketing strategy for version 5.5. Similar things on the specialized software localizers: Pricing at 6000 US$, Alchemy CATALYST is the most expensive product in this review - that is about twice the price of its competitors RC-WinTrans and PASSOLO's Team Edition. Unfortunately, CATALYST's Translator's Edition at 599 US$ is no alternative to the much more costly Localizer or Developer editions at 3500 and 6000 US$ as it lacks the ability to allow for leveraging of previous translations. On the other hand, both RC-WinTrans and PASSOLO require TRADOS if a TM is needed or desired (at a minimum cost of $ 645 for TRADOS Freelance). In the case of PASSOLO, additional 750 $ are necessary for the purchase of the TRADOS-AddIn which provides the interaction between the two programs. Furthermore, additional licenses of TRADOS are necessary if you want to deploy the TM to your translators. In such cases, you might actually be much better of acquiring Alchemy CATALYST's Developer / Pro Edition. Another reason to go for CATALYST is its superiority to handle the XML file format. In this aspect, it even exceeds the abilities of the two general TM solutions.

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