In the relatively halcyon days of localization, the calm before the storm, Andres Heuberger wrote an article published by MultilingualWebmasters.com, in which he pondered the future. "What will the localization industry look like two years from now? Or will there even be a localization industry? In this climate of mergers, IPOs and technological advances, the only certainty appears to be uncertainty." The future imagined by the president of ForeignExchange Translations is now. And it looks bleak.
The first signs of distress came on the heels of the dot-com debacle in the summer of 2000. L&H, widely viewed by high-profile investors and humble Belgian farmers as the shining star in the lingotech cosmos, came under investigation for mismanaging investors monies and, in November, filed for bankruptcy.
In December 2000, SimulTrans CEO and founder Mark Homnack raised some hackles when he predicted that the most globalization technology companies were doomed to extinction. In his presentation at a Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA) meeting, a presentation published as an article in the LISA Newsletter, Homnack identified blind technocentrism and unrealistic market valuation as sources of the industry's woes. He also mentionned greed. His harsh words and hard to swallow, then and particularly in retrospect, delivered a chillingly prescient message.
In an article published in the February 2001 issue of Language International, Connie Myerson chided Homnack for his alarmist prognostications and urged a "broader analysis". Myerson, an independent globalization consultant, suggested that rather than a "meltdown in the globalization services industry", a "long overdue 'market correction'" was underway. Myerson, like Heuberger, embraced change as inevitable and ultimately healthy.
In the course of both formal and less formal research in late winter and early spring, I found that the underlying optimism of Myerson's analysis prevailed over the more dire scenarios. Despite the continuing dot-com implosion, a slowing economy, the rumors and then the reality of widespread, generalized layoffs, hope and ambition endured in the industry. The industry took it all in stride: the dissolution and sell-off of L&H in bits and pieces, the Berlitz buyout, the delisting of Alpnet, and plummeting stock values. Yes, projects were stalled in the pipeline, but not cancelled. Matter of time. Patience.
