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The cost of managing the translations from your end are miniscule
compared to the potential monetary liabilities in the event of injury or
death resulting from incomplete or inaccurate translations. I can't
stress strongly enough that your legal department needs to be consulted
before you or anyone else proceeds further in the process.
What if the customer, in the process of getting the files translated,
removes critical Cautions and Warnings, and then someone later gets hurt
as a result? There is a HUGE liability issue here if your company name
is still on the product.
And who is going to do the translations? A professional translator, or
the secretary sitting on the 6th floor who has some spare time during
the day, but who has no real vested interest or knowledge about the
product or how to use it?
Also, there's a whole customer satisfaction issue at play here.
If I want to purchase a product that was made, for example, in Romania,
I expect to get English docs with it since I'm purchasing it in an
English-speaking country. I would be highly offended if I only got
Romanian docs, and was expected to translate them myself
As a consumer, if I have a choice between a product that's super-duper
excellent but only comes in one language that isn't mine, or a product
that's slightly less super but which is localized into English, I'll
take the second option every time. Many English-speakers, and Americans
in particular, incorrectly assume that the rest of the world understands
English, operates in English, and WANTS everything in English.
OK, I'm off my soapbox now. Can you tell that I think this is a
baaaaaaaaaad idea to hand over control of document translations to the
end user?
Carla
cmartinek | zebra | com
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