The OASIS international standards consortium has launched the XML.org Focus Area on Localisation (http://localisation.xml.org) to provide domain-specific content on XML standards. The site has been developed in cooperation with the Localisation Research Centre, Europe's information, research and educational institute for the linguistic and cultural adaptation of software.

Localisation becomes the latest addition to a growing series of XML.org Focus Areas. Each XML.org Focus Area covers news, standards and initiatives, vendors, consortia, trade associations, government agencies and implementers, events and resources germane to each specific industry sector.

The XML.org Focus Area on Localisation will also serve as an access point to related information on the OASIS-hosted Cover Pages (http://xml.coverpages.org), a comprehensive public resource for information on XML and related technical standards for the structured information community.

Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of globalisation and testing services, recently announced the re-launch of its website www.lionbridge.com The website now includes a set of 'Meta Navigation' tabs allowing immediate access to all five Lionbridge web properties:

The new lionbridge.com website is an information repository for a comprehensive array of Lionbridge services. It also includes services of its VeriTest testing division. Key areas of interest within the site include the Clients section on Lionbridge.com, the Global Tour on VeriTest.com and the One-minute Flipbook, a quick overview of Lionbridge as a company on Lionbridge.com. The New Investor Guide also provides lots of interactive financial information and analysis for investors.

Ycomm Europe NV, a provider of technical translation and printing services, based in Belgium, has outgrown its offices and moved into a more spacious work area. Last month, Ycomm Europe celebrated its fifth anniversary and welcomed aboard its fifteenth employee.

In a continuous attempt to improve localisation work-flows, Ycomm Europe has now taken up the challenge of developing quality assurance tools. In order to address one of the main issues in the localisation business, i.e. verification of translation quality, Ycomm Europe has developed an automated quality assurance tool, called QA-Distiller. Years of hands-on experience in Quality Assurance are distilled into this proofing tool that guarantees the best translation quality. Among other things, QA-Distiller verifies whether translations are consistent and characters are displayed correctly. It can easily process large volumes and different input formats. This XML-based application fine-tunes translations and adds greatly to customer satisfaction.

Having successfully implemented its first tool in the translation work-flow, Ycomm Europe continues to strive for better translation quality and is investigating the development of new tools.

The Microsoft Global Development and Deployment Conference (GDDC) will be held from February 18-20, 2004, at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington. GDDC is the first Microsoft conference dedicated to the development and deployment of international solutions using Microsoft technologies. Conference sessions will cover the development of international solutions using .NET, Win32 and Web technologies; localisation of these solutions; and the deployment of multilingual solutions using various Microsoft products such as Windows, Office, SQL Server and Content Management Server.