#NoLicense: What’s the buzz and why should you care?

#Nolicense:这到底怎么回事,你为何会在意?

2020-05-14 23:00 Smartcat

本文共870个字,阅读需9分钟

阅读模式 切换至中文

“I ain’t afraid of no g̶h̶o̶s̶t̶ license”You might have recently noticed our social media posts tagged with #NoLicense. In this article, we’ll try to explain why it matters and why we believe it is the future of the language industry. TL;DR: Per-user license models are an archaic approach to translation software and lead to prohibitive pricing. Per-user licenses are a hindrance for the translation industry, because they lead to unpredictable risks and/or wasteful spending. For small-to-midsized companies, buying per-user licenses means spending considerable amounts upfront, with unclear ROI. For larger companies and enterprises, buying per-user licenses means managing a stockpile of licenses, many of which remain idle most of the time. For any company, it is considerable spending that is not proportional to the value it provides. Smartcat’s #NoLicense approach allows companies to enjoy the whole set of CAT/TMS features at a fraction of the cost of license-counting translation tools. The COVID-19 pandemic has shortened the time window to act for companies who want to stay afloat amid the crisis. Why are per-user licenses a risk for translation businesses? Most industry tools, whether CAT or TMS, have historically been monetizing on “per-user seats”. It means that if you want to use some software just by yourself and a couple of linguists, it could cost, say, $20 per month. If you want to add a couple more people as project managers and a couple dozen linguists for different languages, it quickly becomes $500+. And the cost continues to increase as you add more users. In theory, the logic is clear: You pay little when you start and more as you grow. However, in practice it doesn’t work so well. First, because these days even small LSPs can — or at least should be able to — handle big projects. Such projects are not paid upfront though, so you cannot just take the $10,000 from your customer and spend $2,000 of it to buy the needed TMS/CAT licenses. Instead, you’ll need to pay from your own pocket — and hope that the deal works out so you can make up for these expenses in a month or so, assuming “Net 30” terms. Then again, many smaller LSPs can’t afford to spend $2000 out of the blue, so they come up with all kinds of “workarounds”: For example, they purchase a one-manager license and “share” it among several people — which means none of them can work at the same time or the system will detect this and penalize them. The same goes for linguist licenses. This infamous “Concurrent Access Licensing” approach has been the bane of many companies’ existences. What if we already have the licenses we need? The same occurs in reverse: If you have already purchased a lot of licenses, and then the amount of orders suddenly drops — which has happened for many during the COVID-19 crisis, for example, — you’re left with a “dead weight.” You have $2000 worth of licenses — which are usually renewed annually — and no work while time chips away at the money you’ve spent. It’s wasted spending, and waste is the source of all inefficiency in business. For larger translation companies, this situation is almost perpetual: Hundreds of paid but unused licenses just sit there and use up your money — money that could have been spent on developing the business or paying better rates to linguists. So, to sum up, per-user licensing in the translation industry leads to either financial risks or business waste — both in unpredictable amounts: Per-user licensing in the translation industry leads to either financial risks or business waste — both in unpredictable amounts. So what’s the way out? We say just get rid of them! What is “#NoLicense” software? Very simple: It is software that does not charge for “seats”, or per-user licenses. As far as we know, Smartcat is the only such software in the translation industry to date. It’s important to note that it’s not something we’ve just thought up and introduced. On the contrary, not charging per user was one of the tenets of Smartcat’s philosophy from the very beginning. How did the idea cross our minds? Because we were on the receiving end of all these licensing schemes as early as ten years ago. Back then, Ivan Smolnikov was the CEO of a large multilingual vendor, and he felt ripped off with the way translation software vendors charged his company. (If you want to know more of the backstory, you can read this article we wrote three years ago, basically on the same topic.) While Smartcat has been professing the same principles for eight years now, it’s inspiring to see that more and more companies are on board with the idea. Back in the day, many companies and freelancers alike would tell us that we were cuckoo. They were sure we would sink into oblivion in a year or two. Fast-forward to today, and we have translation companies lining up to get a Smartcat account. (Not literally, there is no actual line, and everyone is free to sign up at any time
“我不怕无授权”最近,你可能已经注意到我们在社交媒体上发布的文字带有#nolicense的标签。 在这里,我们将试图解释它的重要性以及我们认为它代表语言行业未来的原因。 时间限制;数据记录器: 单用户许可证模型对翻译软件来说有些过时,并且将价格抬高到令人望而却步。 单用户许可证阻碍这翻译行业的发展,因为它们会造成难以预测的风险和/或浪费性支出。 对中小型公司来说,购买单用户许可证意味着要在投资回报尚不明确的情况下预先投入大量资金。 对大公司和企业来说,购买单用户许可证意味着要管理一大批许可证,而其中许多许可证大部分时间都处于闲置状态。 对于任何一家公司来说,如收益与其提供的价值不成正比,这将是一笔数目不小的支出。 Smartcat软件采用#nolicense的方法使公司能够享受整套CAT(计算机辅助翻译)/TMS(传输测试器)功能,而成本仅为许可证计数翻译工具的一小部分。 一些公司渴望通过采取行动保持活力继而度过危机,全球的新冠疫情缩短了时间窗口 。 为何单用户许可证对翻译行业来说是一种风险? 大多数行业工具,无论是CAT(计算机辅助翻译)还是TMS(传输测试器),历史上都是以“用户席位”来赚钱的。 就是说如果你只想和几个语言学家共用某些软件,每月只需要花费20美元。 如果你想增加几个人作为项目经理以及几十个多语种的语言学家,就会增长到500美元以上。 而且成本会随着用户的增加而不断增加。 从理论上来讲,逻辑很清晰:开始的时候只需支付很少金额,随着用户的增长会花费更多。 然而,在实践中,它的效果并没有那么好。 首先,因为目前即使是小型LSP也能够--或者至少应该能够--处理大型项目。 由于这样的项目没有预付款,因此你无法预先从客户那里得到10,000美元,然后花掉其中2,000美元去购买所需的TMS/CAT许可证。 与之相反的是,你需要自掏腰包--你只能期望这笔交易取得成功,这样你就能在一个月左右的时间里补好这些资金漏洞,比如说“净30”条款。 话说回来,许多较小的LSP难以支付突如其来的2000美元,因此他们想出了各种各样的“变通办法”:例如,他们想要购买一个经理许可证,并在几个人之间“共享”--这意味着他们无法同时工作,否则假如被系统检测到他们便会受罚。 语言学家执照也是如此。 这种臭名昭著的“并发访问许可”的方法一直以来都困扰着许多公司。 那么假如我们已经有了需要的执照呢? 同样的情况结果也可能会不同:如果你已经购买了很多许可证,然后订单量突然下降--例如,在疫情期间,很多人都遇到过这种情况--你就只剩“负重”了。你拥有价值2000美元的许可证--通常每年都需要续签--无法工作,随着时间逝去,钱在慢慢消耗殆尽。 这是在浪费开支,而浪费是商业中所有低效的根源。 对于较大的翻译公司来说,这种情况几乎是永久性的:成百上千的付了费但未使用的许可证就这样在那里,耗光了你的钱--这些钱本来可以花在发展业务,或者付给语言学家更好的费率上。 因此,总而言之,翻译行业的单用户许可证要么会增加财务风险,要么会造成业务浪费--两者的数量都是不可预见的: 翻译行业的单用户许可证要么会增加财务风险,要么会造成业务浪费--两者的数量都是不可预见的。 那么出路是什么? 如我们所说不再使用它们! 那么什么是“#Nolicense”软件? 很简单:这是一款不按“席位”,或单用户许可证收费的软件。 据我们所知,Smartcat是迄今为止翻译行业唯一一款这样的软件。 需要注意的是,它不是我们突然想出来和想要推出的东西。 相反,不按用户收费是Smartcat软件最初理念的信条之一。 我们是如何有这个想法的呢? 因为早在十年前,我们就已是所有这些授权方案的接收者。 当时,伊万·斯莫尔尼科夫是一家大型多语言供应商的首席执行官,翻译软件供应商向他公司收费的方式令他难以接受,他觉得自己被敲诈了。 (如果你想了解更多的背景故事,可以看看我们三年前写的这篇文章,基本都是围绕同一个话题。) 尽管Smartcat一直以来已经宣称该原则长达8年,但看到越来越多的公司赞同这一想法,这尤其令人激动。 在过去,很多公司和自由职业者都会告诉我们,我们就像是布谷鸟。 他们确信一两年后我们就会被遗忘。 时隔至今,已经有翻译公司排着队想要一个Smartcat帐户。 (非字面意思,不是真得在排队,每个人都可以随时自由报名。)

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

阅读原文