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204 Reinhard SchälerYet, as we have seen developments have taken place in recent years that havedemonstrated the validity of standard approaches to localisation problems. Thishas lead to a readjustment of the way localisation is being perceived and to asignificant increase in efforts around standardisation. Today, the most progressiveand advanced localisation operations highlight and take advantage of commonalitiesin the localisation process, as demonstrated in the earlier case study.Among these commonalities are:– Frequent updatesOnly in exceptional cases is digital material localised for the first time; most ofthe localisation effort is spent on updates to previously localised material.– Short productcyclesDigital material has an extremely short shelf live, product cycles of monthsor even years are virtually unknown; timely delivery of localised versions istherefore a crucial business requirement.– Composition of materialTypically, the material to be localised is highly repetitive in itself and especiallyacross different versions (updates); it can be composed of:– Non-translatables (5%) – text fragments that should not be translated, suchas company and product names– Unknown (10%) – new text not known from previous versions– Known (15%) – text that has only been modified slightly, such as partnumbers, small linguistic corrections/modifications– Unchanged (70%) – text that has been carried over unchanged from aprevious version– Consistency requirementsMost projects are being completed by large teams of translators who achieveconsistency between their translations by implementing stringent terminologyguidelines and by using translation memory technologies. Consistency isrequired within a translation, between different versions, between differentproducts of the same publisher, and across application types and operatingsystems.We have identified two fundamental problems that are causing tremendous difficultiesfor localisation automation efforts. These are:1. Mark-up and formatting of source material (finding a needle in the haystack)How can the material to be localised be identified among tens of thousands of files,unambiguously marked-up and formatted in a generally accepted standard so thatit can be processed by any tool or technology complying with this standard? Thereis a believe that the main barrier to cheaper, faster and better localisation is not