ALS boosts client base with buy-out

language services provider Applied Language Solutions (ALS) has acquired Dublin-based Traslan Teoranta Ltd.

The acquisition gives the ALS team access to an established customer base in Ireland, which it can target with language services not provided by Traslan.

Saddleworth-based ALS saw an opportunity to strengthen its machine translation (MT) knowledge and capabilities through the acquisition.

Machine translation has gained significant momentum in the language services industry in recent years, particularly since the introduction of statistical machine translation technology in 2003.

Traslan was established in response to this advance and designed and built its own MT engine.

Commenting on the company’s second acquisition, ALS chief executive Gavin Wheeldon said: “Traslan gives our team of IT developers access to a proprietary engine which is extremely valuable in terms of our MT intellectual property.

“The company has a reputation for being actively involved with cutting-edge EU research and this is something that we are keen to continue with as we integrate Traslan into ALS.”

ALS, which has its worldwide headquarters at Riverside Court, Delph, has offered custom-built machine translation engines to customers for two years. These can halve translation budgets and more than double translation turnaround speed.

This service has attracted projects from a number of high-profile customers including Dell, Caterpillar and Credit Suisse.