SDL International, a worldwide leader in translation products and services, has announced the expansion of its activities within the Asia-Pacific Region, through increased investment in its already substantial network of offices and staff, serving many of the world's leading organizations.

 Companies often find to their cost that the provision of localized products for Asian markets is a much more complex task than that of European localization. They have found it imperative to use complete local production offices in the region, to provide a true translation and cultural adaptation within the timeframe and to the quality required.

SDL's offices in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand have all been expanded to accommodate additional demand from existing clients such as Computer Associates, Canon, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Morgan Stanley, Oracle, Siebel and Sybase.

"We have a large number of customers who depend on the breadth of our expertise within these newly-expanding economies", said Mark Lancaster, Chief Executive of SDL International. "We decided to both consolidate and expand our resources in the technical and the linguistic aspects of Asian localization and translation, in order to capitalize on our lead in these important markets."

"China, for example, is the most populous country in the world and has virtually unlimited demand for western technology and products.As a result, our Chinese operations are now headquartered in Shenzhen, right across the border from Hong Kong."

All of SDL's operations in the region now provide the complete suite of localization services, controlled through local project managers:

• China - headquartered in Shenzen
• Japan - headquartered in Tokyo
• Korea - headquartered in Seoul
• Singapore - delivering local contact for organizations with an Asian HQ in Singapore.
• Taiwan
• Thailand - the Bangkok office providing specialist support for Oracle, as well as a variety of global manufacturing clients.
  

"Our Asian Regional office combination makes us the largest and broadest-based company in our market, with software engineering, publishing and translation expertise all under the control of full-time, local project management", Lancaster concluded.