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The new Trados - shocked to see the pricetag!
Thread poster: Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:03
Member (2008)
English to Danish
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May 7, 2009

As most of us know, SDL is bringing out a new version of Trados in June this year. An agency I work for has had it for beta-testing for a while now and they like it. They are not making any decisions yet though.

I had a look at the DSL-site and I was shocked to see the pricetag! Almost 3000 euro. With the current financial climate surely very few agencies and freelancers are likely to make this investment this year.

I am certainly not going to even consider buying this
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As most of us know, SDL is bringing out a new version of Trados in June this year. An agency I work for has had it for beta-testing for a while now and they like it. They are not making any decisions yet though.

I had a look at the DSL-site and I was shocked to see the pricetag! Almost 3000 euro. With the current financial climate surely very few agencies and freelancers are likely to make this investment this year.

I am certainly not going to even consider buying this year.

What is your take?
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avsie (X)
avsie (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 04:03
English to French
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Professional edition? May 7, 2009

Hi Ivana,

I'm not sure what page you're looking at, but here the price is €715 for freelancers: http://www.translationzone.com/en/shop/shop_main.asp

You were probably looking at the Professional version of the software, for businesses and agencies.

[Edited at 2009-05-07 13:04 GMT]


 
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:03
Member (2008)
English to Danish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank God for that! May 7, 2009

Thank you Marie-Clause, I was kind of hoping that I got it wrong! And yes, I was looking at the Professional version - silly me, thinking that I am a professional

I still think that nearly 800 euro is a lot of money though. I can get a very good new laptop for that money.

I'll redefine my question then:

Are you all going to buy the new Trados? What are your clients going to do?

I
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Thank you Marie-Clause, I was kind of hoping that I got it wrong! And yes, I was looking at the Professional version - silly me, thinking that I am a professional

I still think that nearly 800 euro is a lot of money though. I can get a very good new laptop for that money.

I'll redefine my question then:

Are you all going to buy the new Trados? What are your clients going to do?

I am actually hoping that this could be a turning point. Trados is becoming more and more "exclusive" ie. it gets more difficult to produce Trados-compatible CAT-tools. Maybe it's time for the big agencies to introduce new CAT tools?
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Kevin Lossner
Kevin Lossner  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 03:03
German to English
+ ...
Easy to get confused May 7, 2009

SDL Trados was rather unwise in the way the ads were placed here on ProZ, and I got confused in the same way until the product manager cleared the matter up. If you want to see a discussion of the mixup and subsequent clarification, have a look here.

Of course the question remains as to whether it's worth paying for a technology which is better established with other prov
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SDL Trados was rather unwise in the way the ads were placed here on ProZ, and I got confused in the same way until the product manager cleared the matter up. If you want to see a discussion of the mixup and subsequent clarification, have a look here.

Of course the question remains as to whether it's worth paying for a technology which is better established with other providers. Stuff like the so-called PDF translation will prove a huge disappointment and backfire badly in many cases I predict.
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Kevin Lossner
Kevin Lossner  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 03:03
German to English
+ ...
Alternatives May 7, 2009

Ivana Friis Wilson wrote:
Maybe it's time for the big agencies to introduce new CAT tools?


I don't follow you. Many of the really big ones have had their own proprietary tools for years. SDL, Star and Lionbridge, for example.

As for reasonable alternatives, there are a number of them out there. If I had to place a bet on a mature technology with huge promise for agency and enterprise use, I'd put my money down on Kilgray's MemoQ. Only a year ago I scoffed at the idea of using it for large projects, but in the meantime huge advances have been made, and the performance and support are excellent. It's even replacing Déjà Vu here in-house - something I would have considered impossible a few months ago.


 
Wolfgang Jörissen
Wolfgang Jörissen  Identity Verified
Belize
Dutch to German
+ ...
Reluctant clients May 7, 2009

The clients I spoke to are rather reluctant, given the fact that they face high investments into several PRO-licences, not even talking about the complete change in workflow, educating inhouse staff etc.

I will probably buy it this time though (my first Trados licence in 10 years!!!), since there really seems to be some development out there. However, one of the features I was looking forward to, now seems to be PRO-version only. As usual, Trados has a way to .... me ... .


 
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:03
Member (2008)
English to Danish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Wait and see? May 7, 2009

Kevin, maybe I am wrong but I was under the impression that Trados is used by many of the larger clients who don't have their own in-house CAT tool. Personally I only work with one major agency and they use Trados. Some of my other clients are suppliers for the larger agencies and they insist that they have to use Trados to be able to serve these larger clients.

You are not the first to mention Kilgrays MemoQ. Maybe I should look into it.

Wolfgang, that is my impression
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Kevin, maybe I am wrong but I was under the impression that Trados is used by many of the larger clients who don't have their own in-house CAT tool. Personally I only work with one major agency and they use Trados. Some of my other clients are suppliers for the larger agencies and they insist that they have to use Trados to be able to serve these larger clients.

You are not the first to mention Kilgrays MemoQ. Maybe I should look into it.

Wolfgang, that is my impression as well - many agencies will wait and see.

Also, I have doubts about the stability of the new Trados - if I do get it, it will certainly not be till this new version has had a couple of upgrades. Like I still run Windows XP and Word 2003 and I have only just started thinking about Vista and Word 2007.
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Yossi Rozenman
Yossi Rozenman  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 04:03
Member (2006)
English to Hebrew
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I will certainly wait for next version of the new SDL-Trados May 7, 2009

I had Trados 6.5 and only at the beginning of this year I purchased SDL Trados 2007 Freelance Suite.

When a product goes major changes, I prefer to wait for it to ripe and not be their guinea pig.


 
Williamson
Williamson  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:03
Flemish to English
+ ...
Don't thank God for Trados May 7, 2009

800 euros is a lot of money for a macro/add-in, because that is what Trados is. Nothing more and nothing less. Even Micro$oft does not charge such prices for its *-products.

 
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:03
Member (2008)
English to Danish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Couldn't agree more! May 7, 2009

Williamson, you are quite right, and I do not disagree with you. Unfortunately my personal opinion clash with the reality of having to use Trados because of agency requirements.

I avoid using Trados when I can. Metatexis is my favorite. I have Trados 2007 at the moment, but only because a very kind agency gave me a copy so I could work for them. I am still not sure if I want to pay money for Trados.

Rumour has it that the new Trados is not just a macro, though.


 
Ralf Lemster
Ralf Lemster  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 04:03
English to German
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Have you tried the new version? May 7, 2009

Williamson wrote:

800 euros is a lot of money for a macro/add-in, because that is what Trados is. Nothing more and nothing less.


Having taken part in the Beta test myself, I have just installed the RC1 (release candidate) version. I wonder where you got the notion about SDL Trados Studio 2009 being a "macro/add-in".

Best regards,
Ralf


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
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Member (2005)
English to Spanish
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Hm... Not quite true May 7, 2009

Williamson wrote:
800 euros is a lot of money for a macro/add-in, because that is what Trados is. Nothing more and nothing less. Even Micro$oft does not charge such prices for its *-products.


I think this opinion forgets the tons of interesting things you can do with Trados and that are critical for a solid translation business...


 
Kevin Lossner
Kevin Lossner  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 03:03
German to English
+ ...
Tools and workflows May 7, 2009

Ivana Friis Wilson wrote:
Kevin, maybe I am wrong but I was under the impression that Trados is used by many of the larger clients who don't have their own in-house CAT tool.
You are not the first to mention Kilgrays MemoQ. Maybe I should look into it.

Also, I have doubts about the stability of the new Trados - if I do get it, it will certainly not be till this new version has had a couple of upgrades.


Your impression is correct; however, in my experience it is usually more efficient to do these Trados projects with other tools which allow better terminology integration, TM subsegment matching, etc. or simply have better ergonomics. Many years ago when I was using both Déjà Vu and Trados (then v5) frequently, I kept careful records of my translation speed working with both tools on various types of text. At the time I found that I worked 20 to 30% faster with the DV interface than with the Trados interfaces (Word macros or TagEditor - I tracked both). My figures were disputed by some at the time, but now I'm having a good laugh at SDL's claim that the coming version of Trados - which mimics the columnar interface of DV, SDLX, MemoQ and others - leads to work being 20% more efficient. For once the marketing folks at SDL are telling the truth

There are a few things in the current version of MemoQ which I find particularly advantageous. I like the subsegment concordancing, and the way the assembly feature works in v3.5 together with the hotkey match inserts let me work faster and better than my usual tool DVX (which is way better than Trados). The TM-driven segmentation is also useful for overcoming problems created by differences in the way some people handle manual segmentation in Trados. In a current project with about 250 little TTX files, I can have a much better overview of the progress and export selectively than I can with DVX and probably Trados. (I don't know my way around Synergy, so I'm hesitant to make a definitive statement for the current version.)

And then there's the issue of support. What's the point of giving money to a company that is well known for its unwillingness to provide users with the support they need. Even those with support contracts are often sadly disappointed. My favorite tool hasn't been doing so hot in that department lately either, but at the current time the Kilgray team seems to "get it" when it comes to support issues. I hear good things about other tools' support (Wordfast for example), but since I don't have direct experience with them, there's not much I can say.

But unless you do server-based Trados projects or need to cope with large MultiTerm termbases in your project, there are seldom compelling reasons to buy or work directly with SDL Trados software. If you approach work with the alternatives carefully and understand the limits, you can be very successful doing nearly all Trados projects with other tools. And save money and high blood pressure while doing so....


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 04:03
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
No, I'm not going to buy a new version before I am forced to. May 7, 2009

At the New Year I had enough trouble converting from Trados 2006 to 2007.

It is still not running entirely smoothly.

My attitude to Trados is: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!'

And I'm earning those 800 Euros on Wordfast Classic, which I installed unaided in far less time than it took my IT expert to coax Trados into action. Wordfast accepted all my old TMs without a hitch - on the full version: they are too large for the demo. But it is still cheaper tha
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At the New Year I had enough trouble converting from Trados 2006 to 2007.

It is still not running entirely smoothly.

My attitude to Trados is: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!'

And I'm earning those 800 Euros on Wordfast Classic, which I installed unaided in far less time than it took my IT expert to coax Trados into action. Wordfast accepted all my old TMs without a hitch - on the full version: they are too large for the demo. But it is still cheaper than Trados.

The best thing about WF is that I can make my own adjustments, edit the glossaries and get back to work without having to get help.
My clients have not noticed the difference - and in two cases I have done the job with Wordfast when the Workbench or TagEditor could not open the file.

I still use Trados occasionally, but it is seriously time to ask yourself whether it is really worth the extra investment, or whether a cheaper alternative can give you what you need.

Happy translating ...

[Edited at 2009-05-07 14:29 GMT]
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Kevin Lossner
Kevin Lossner  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 03:03
German to English
+ ...
Irrelevant May 7, 2009

Williamson wrote:
800 euros is a lot of money for a macro/add-in


This statement has nothing whatsoever to do with the new version nor is it relevant to the current version if TagEditor is used (which is necessary for all but RTF & Word docs and often a good idea even then).

But if you want to rephrase that as "800 euros is too much for an immature technology from a provider with a history of buggy development and bad support" you certainly won't hear an argument from me.


 
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The new Trados - shocked to see the pricetag!






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