Happy new year! And welcome to the new MultiLingual.

What’s new is partly substance — our increasingly wide-ranging subject matter — and partly a matter of style. For starters, we shortened the title from MultiLingual Computing & Technology to MultiLingual (which is what many of you called us already). And then we thought about how we wanted the magazine to look and feel now — to help all readers to navigate and use the magazine easily, introducing newcomers to the language industry while continuing to present the news and information that experienced language professionals expect and require.

At Localization World Seattle 2005, we saw clearly that the distinction between “vendor” and “client” has become almost meaningless. Language service providers, tool developers, localization firms and end users are all vendors and clients to one another. Translators, tool developers, localizers, project managers — everyone who loves languages and works with language tools needs to share ideas and concerns. This magazine is a place for that discussion. Here are some of the new elements:

• Those color tabs that “bleed” off the pages mark the various sections for your quick reference: red for news and calendar, orange for reviews, blue for feature articles, light green for buyer’s guide — and gold for the “up front” keys to it all.
• Some of the most expert experts we know have accepted our invitation to write columns (burgundy tabs) — in this issue, technical communicator Kit Brown, geographer Tom Edwards and international marketer John Freivalds. And Hans Fenstermacher offers a “takeaway.”
• A new Basics section (light blue) will provide terminology and other helps for people new to localization and language technology.

We haven’t changed our commitment to bringing you outstanding information and ideas from the world’s leaders in translation, localization, international software development and language technology. So, in this issue you’ll find

• in Tools, a focus on translation memory with an overview by Jost Zetzsche and contributions from Bernard Normier and Daniel Gervais, as well as a report on the Translation Tools Forum at the American Translators Association conference;
• in Business, a focus on call centers with an article from Erik Granered, who literally wrote the book on the subject (Global Call Centers: Achieving Outstanding Customer Service Across Borders and Time Zones), the story of Nicaragua’s effort to become the “new India” by Daniel Wyld, and a report on a localization class project with real-world effect by Debbie Folaron and Philippe Mercier;
• in Tech, an outline of the history of character encodings by Brooks Kline and survey results about who’s using Unicode resources and how by Asmus Freytag;
• in Reviews, the Heartsome Translation Suite (Ignacio Garcia and Vivian
  Stevenson), the localization suite CATALYST 6 (Thomas Waßmer) and the book TRADOS for Dummies (Dena Bugel-Shunra).
• And a new Getting Started: Europe guide offers practical information about working in the region, wherever you’re coming from. ¡Salud!

—Laurel Wagers, Managing Editor
   
laurel@multilingual.com