Palm® and Localizers: a success story

U.S. Robotics. 3Com. Palm. Handspring. palmOne. Palm. A turbulent corporate history, several 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. In 2009 Palm introduced its groundbreaking mobile computing platform named webOS™ as well as the Pre™ and Pixi™, the first phones based on this new operating system.

These are significant developments, and Localizers has been right alongside, providing localization 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 compiled and maintained glossaries and provided linguistic support to Palm developers, testers and translation vendors. In short: Localizers has been Palm’s go-to source for linguistic services for more than 13 years.

For the webOS platform, we have been providing localization and linguistic review services for locales such as German for Germany, English for the U.K., French for France and Canada, Italian for Italy, Spanish for Spain and the U.S, and Chinese for the People's Republic of China. As Palm adds new languages and locales, we will be ready to provide linguistic support for them as well.

Our work on webOS has included localizing the user interface, performing linguistic review of all translations to ensure terminological and stylistic accuracy and consistency, assessing bug reports filed by QA personnel, and incorporating special terminology and labeling requirements of overseas carriers. We met even the most stringent deadlines, often delivering translations within a matter of hours, and proved ourselves an essential partner of Palm's localization and QA engineers.

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

Palm, Pre, Treo and webOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Palm, Inc.