Chess…not the final frontier
IBM are of course best known as long established world leaders in computing hardware, networking infrastructure and consultancy services and are well known for their innovation and willingness to experiment with ideas and to branch out into new areas. This was demonstrated in 1997 when after some years of research they pitted their supercomputer Deep Blue against international chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov…the final result was that Deep Blue won the match, however, the event demonstrated the bravery and innovation present within IBM.
Fast forward to 2008 and we can see that chess was not the final frontier for IBM; it seems that they have made a break into the translation services sector by setting up a Translation Centre in Pune (Western India). The Centre will translate documents from Italian, Spanish, German and French into English.
As you might expect with a company of IBM’s calibre, this is only the beginning of their ambitions within the sector; they have already stated that the Pune translations Centre is to be the first of similar centres in Europe and Asia that are to offer translation into multiple languages.
In a comment by IBM, the company stated that the current Centre in Pune would not only manually translate documents such as e-mail messages, contracts and internet pages/sites, but that the staff would also be using bespoke IBM developed technology combined with tools available within the translations market to automate much of this translation work.
The Pune centre covers some 180,000sq ft and employs over 2,000 staff…looks like they mean business!