Phrase Localization Platform vs. TransPerfect GlobalLink

The system is well suited if you also run Trados or any second system. As the system is very expensive and the use of MTUs is rather complicated to understand the best thing is to run most larger projects through Trados or any other CAT tool and then to import it. Large projects are expensive in Phrase Localization Platform so I would recommend it if you have small projects and have enough capacity to carefully check the terminology as the data pulled from the term base is inconsistent. The same applies to the find replace feature which can work great.

It's effective for translating technical content, but there are faster, more intuitive, and visually cleaner tools that are out there. It's a bit clunky and requires too many different steps for different things in my opinion.

Incentivized

• The QA tool it provides is practical and always handy.
• Instant QA feature can save time at the end of the process.
• The possibility to decline a job directly from the platform instead of having to contact the client by email.

• The glossary is good to work with

Incentivized

• In the case of EN to JA translation, we enter text and then convert it to get the correct final text (word or phrase) which uses correct Chinese character(s), as there are often multiple Chinese characters with the same reading but different meanings. When those conversion options are displayed, it is usually possible to change our selection among them by hitting the Tab key, but in Memsource, hitting the Tab key makes us leave the text conversion and move to the source segment, so we must make sure to use arrow keys to choose the right conversion option when using Memsource.
• When there are tag elements used in the source text, the tags must exist in the target text of course, but the tag order also must be the same. The tags cannot be moved around in the segment, which causes problems in the case of the Japanese language, because the word order differs between EN and JA.
• In the Japanese language, Italics are basically not used, so there must be no texts between the tags which specify Italic font. But then the segment cannot be confirmed and the job status cannot be changed to "Complete".

• Slow, bugs and errors aren't uncommon, logs you out suddenly, sometimes doesn't save what you've worked on even if you commit/save strings
• No shortcut-available, you have to mouse-click a lot, makes work less intuitive
• Confusing interface
• Not sure if it's the tasks' setup once they're sent to linguists, but sometimes almost exact matches don't show up automatically. You have to search bits of a sentence to hopefully find an exact match that had been translated before, but for some reason didn't show as a suggestion. That takes up a huge amount of time.

Incentivized

I use and manage an Academic edition (approx. 15 students) and the corporate license (10 users). In both cases, the features are easy to find, set and use. My students and my translators understand the dynamics of the platform easily and get used to them quickly.

It is designed to be a lean system, but that means that things are clustered in weird groups and a lot of trial and error is involved getting the settings right. If something goes wrong first level support is very quick and has very fast answers which are quite typical of first level support and essentially equate to asking you if you have switched it off and on yet. Anything more involved is challenging for support to address.

We rarely use support, but most questions were answered in a timely fashion, although we didn't exactly find them satisfactory. That's mostly the fault of the software and not the Support team because we asked for things that Memsource couldn't do.

Incentivized

Memsource has a very good user interface that people can quickly learn and start using. Also, its analysis features are top class which helps me provide a detailed estimate to my client based on the file particulars. It has a QA feature that helps me do a very high-quality check before I send out my translation to the client.

It's the slowest of them all and the design/interface/usability is a little 1990. I also don't feel as confident that it will save my work to the cloud like the others do, because it has logged me out suddenly and didn't save the last strings I had worked on, even if I had committed them and saved them.

Incentivized

• Positive impact as I have been able to recruit and reach more and new clients.
• As it is easy to use, I provide high quality translations for my clients.
• Using TM and Search ensures consistency and my clients appreciate my good work with the help of Memsource.

• Positive: Helps with content consistency (using the same terms/phrase matches throughout the years)
• Positive: Good glossary building for repeated, technical terms and names
• Negative: I feel it slows work down rather than speeding it up, which is the idea behind using a CAT tool

Incentivized