The Market and User Population
The market for WebIT/EFCOT will consist, in the first instance, of professionals
involved in translation and terminology activities in the field of IT and software
development, and later of a wider group, including e.g. journalists, technical writers,
language consultants and non-professional language users. The project is a response to,
and a continuation of, work already carried out by the Localisation Research Centre (LRC), the Software Localisation Interest Group (SLIG) and the Joint Group for Swedish Computer Terminology (JOGSCOT).
Size of
Market
The potential size of the market for WebIT/EFCOT can be demonstrated by examining the
current state of the localisation industry, whose development over the last number of
years has resulted in a demand for a product such as WebIT/EFCOT. The market for localised
products is increasing steadily.
Ireland is now the world centre for software localisation with around 5,000 people
directly employed in the industry. Ireland is the world's second largest exporter of
software; in 1995, for example, Ireland produced 5 billion pounds worth of software,
almost all of which was exported. Over 40% of all packaged software and 60% of business
applications sold in Europe are produced in Ireland. Localisation is not confined to a
narrowly defined set of language pairs and as the market for localised products increases,
so too does the need to provide matching language resources.
As an example, the term inquiry services of both TNC (the Swedish Centre for Technical
Terminology) and the Swedish Language Council have for some years now experienced an
increased demand for Swedish ICT-terminology. Journalists, teachers and other language
professionals want to write about ICT matters in Swedish, but do not seem to find the
Swedish terminology they need available. Thus, there is considerable potential for a
cross-national web service of the JOGSCOT-kind-
a web site which in itself has attained enormous attention in Sweden since its launch.
Background
l Description l Strands l Benefits |
