Company Designs Multilingual CD-ROMs

Agnew Tech II of Westlake Village, a 9-year-old language translation service whose clients range from small advertising firms to Fortune 500 companies, has begun designing CD-ROM programs that communicate in multiple languages. Its clients are using the programs as promotional material and instruction manuals to do business abroad and in ethnic communities at home.

“Let’s say a client is sending a product to Europe, where its customers speak French, German and other languages,” said Irene Agnew, president of Agnew Tech II. “Instead of creating promotional materials in each different language, they can create one CD-ROM program. Users can select the language of their choice just by pushing a button on their PC or Mac.”

Her company is developing CD-ROM programs for 20 of its nearly 200 clients. She said a CD-ROM will cost her clients from $5,000--for a press release and some photos--to $20,000 and up for more involved publicity packages, with video, graphics and text.

Agnew said for now her company will stick to designing CD-ROMs for corporate clients, but later may develop CD-ROM translation materials for the general public, possibly in the form of glossaries or instruction manuals.

Agnew Tech II became involved in interactive programming in 1994. Agnew said the additional services her company can now offer should increase its sales by about 30% for its current fiscal year. Last year the company had sales of $1.5 million, she said.

Agnew Tech II has 11 full-time employees and about 250 part-time translators worldwide. Its clients include Southern California Edison, Ford Motor Co., and Sprint Communications. The bulk of Agnew Tech II’s business involves translating instruction manuals, training manuals and data sheets, and producing multilingual advertising voice-overs.