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Nov
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This year, once more, TransMUG is at the ATA Conference to help translators on the fence make the decision to switch, and to support Mac users in a PC-centric professional world. We are renewing our “Trados on the Mac” card campaign at a time when it has never been easier to run the PC-based Translation Environment Tools on the Mac.
Moreover, a panel moderated by Language Technology Division Administrator Michael Metzger, TransMUG members Catherine Theilen-Burke, co-founder Christine Lemor-Drake, and myself, as well as consultant and recent switcher, and now evangelizer Emmanuel Lemor, will review the many advantages of using the Mac platform. Catherine is introducing our November 1st session:
We are gearing up for our presentation at the ATA conference “The Merits of a Mac in a PC Centric Translation World.” Some of you probably believe the product speaks for itself and will naturally attract converts. There is something to be said for that. Certainly the timing is good for this type of discussion. Your support at our session is welcome, come to the ATA session Thursday November 1st at 3:30. We are not looking to preach to the choir, but to lay out options, resources and to create a forum. The information from the session will appear on this blog, and the conference DVD. Many translators have invested their intellectual and financial capital in PC tools and that must be respected. Others will be tempted to explore the Mac given the momentum created by new products.
The contents of the session will set the context for this exploration into Macs. Many of us have had drummed into us that PC’s were the only option and you couldn’t get translation work unless you abandoned the Mac. Even three years ago, if you weren’t a savvy Mac user, to a certain extent this was true. Everything depends on what kind of translation work you do. As translators we are always looking to our next computer and for the most part constantly fine tuning and problem solving to keep the systems we have running smoothly. Now that you can buy a Mac and run a total PC environment, if that is what it takes for people to discover the Mac, so be it. Sooner or later, they will venture into the Mac platform and discover it’s potential.
Articles accompanying the release of Leopard have been very positive.
In Thursday’s New York Times (10/25/07) business in David Pogue’s State of the Art Column titled “A MacLeap Courtesy Of Leopard” continued on page 9 by “A Leap in Cleverness Sure as Leopard’s Feet” goes over the set up of the big feature Time Machine, “one click – that’s got to be the shortest setup of any backup system in history”, one click set up has always been a feature on Macs and continues to be so. Time machine is visually attractive and innovative according to Pogue. Spaces, virtual screen software, improvements to Boot Camp receive good marks; the see-through menus have mixed reviews. The article ends with “Leopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises and very few disappointments, lie around every corner”. An altogether encouraging review given the context of Apple’s market share and the dominance of the PC.
An article appearing in Monday’s New York Times business section (10/22/07) gives us some details of Apple’s growing market share. Apple will continue with its pace of frequent upgrades and it’s expected growth for the next quarter is higher than expected by industry analysts, “(the research firm) Gartner forecast that Apple would grow more than 37 percent based on shipments of 1.3 million computers, for an 8.1% share of the domestic market.”. Visitors to the Apple stores numbered 100 million last year. How many of these visitors are potential switchers? Mr. Wolf (Industry newsletter Wolf’s Bytes) “estimated that 60-70 million of them were Windows users drawn by the iPod or the iPhone, who could potentially shift to the Macs.” So we are in an interesting period of time, many avenues to explore, tools to look at. This period of transition and new products is a perfect setting for an examination of using Mac’s in a translation world.
Don’t hesitate to stop by the NCTA table, at the entrance of the Grand Foyer if you are attending the Conference. Welcome to San Francisco!
