Palm® and Localizers: a success story

U.S. Robotics. 3Com. Palm. Handspring. palmOne. Palm. A turbulent corporate history, a bunch of different names, but one constant: Localizers.

A true pioneer of our times, Palm single-handedly invented handheld computing in 1996, giving people on the road and on the go access to vital information wherever they were. In a short period of time, people using PalmPilots, as the early generation of devices was called, became a commonplace sight.

As time went on, straight handhelds began to lose ground to cellular phones with built-in contact and calendar applications. To adapt to this trend, Palm acquired Handspring in 2003 and began to focus on its line of Treo™ Smartphones. Treos are now available worldwide on all popular wireless platforms and supported by all leading cellular phone providers.

These are significant developments for ten short years, and Localizers has been right alongside, providing translation and linguistic review services in an ever-expanding range of languages. Localizers’ founding partners, Sabine Hathaway and Gerhard Bock, and their team of linguists have worked on every Palm device since the PalmPilot™. We have tested the user interface and applications, translated, shortened and abbreviated strings so they fit the screen (often quite a feat, considering how little screen real estate was available on the early devices), and reviewed the printed documentation for linguistic and stylistic accuracy. We have spent countless hours compiling and maintaining glossaries and providing linguistic support to Palm developers, testers and translation vendors. We have been instrumental in overhauling translation memories to keep them up to date and consistent. In short: Localizers has been Palm’s go-to source for linguistic services for more than 10 years.

The people on our team have been the same for many years. They have worked on every device Palm has released, sharing their linguistic expertise in the area of handheld computing and contributing their knowledge of style and terminology.

The benefits for Palm are clear: continuity, consistency and peace of mind. Palm can tap into Localizers’ pool of resources at any time. Answers to terminological or stylistic issues are just an e-mail or a phone call away. Some strings need shortening at 9 p.m.? No problem, Localizers will have them shortened by 9 a.m. the following morning.

That’s the kind of service a cutting-edge company like Palm needs. That’s the kind of service Localizers provides.

Palm, Palm OS and Treo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Palm, Inc.