I finally activated my copy of Studio 2017 this morning. As usual I was asked to select five languages and as usual I found myself asking why. Why can't the software pick out the five languages I had selected for 2015 and 2014 and offer me a choice, a button saying "Use existing languages?"? Fuming, I selected the languages. More time wasted on things that should be done automatically with one click.

Then immediately I was notified of an update. After it had downloaded I was again I was asked for the same languages I had entered less than five minutes before.

Who makes these apparently thought-free decisions about SDL products?

Who is it that thinks it's going to work out well for SDL in the long term to annoy their freelancer customers by forcing them to waste their time on pointless procedures like this that could easily be removed, if only SDL management actually cared about filing the rough edges off their software?

Can we have the people responsible on here so that I have somebody other than Paul to whom l can give a piece of my mind?

I'm a full-time professional and I pay significant sums of money for this software. I want functionality that directly improves my efficiency and part of that is a streamlined interface that requires me to make as few clicks as possible. I have seen no progress on that front in Studio over two generations of product. The five languages issue is an excellent example.

Another is creation of termbases: why can't I just have the option of a one-click process that creates a new termbase immediately and without having to deal with the lumbering time-sink that is Multiterm? One button in the Studio interface saying "Create based on existing termbase". I click on it, it pops up a list right under the cursor of the ten most recently used termbases, saying "Select termbase to use as template". I click on my main termbase. Done, new termbase created. If that's hard, you need new developers.

Another is friction-free selection of the primary termbase. I am frequently in a situation where I using a client-specific termbase but want to save a term to the main termbase because it has wider relevance. Why can I not just click on a button and change the primary termbase instantly from a pop-up list? Why is a button not provided that allows me to add the term simultaneously to all active termbases, or a subset?

I could go on (disastrous aligner, non-existent printing functions etc.). I have used enough software since first seeing Visicalc that I thought I had become inured to feckless design decisions. I don't normally rant when I see young developers making the same mistakes that were made in the 1980s, I just give a wry smile. But really, there are limits.

There is more to productivity than flashy new suggestion technology. You've spent some time on the shiny new toys in 2017 and yes, I like those too, but you really need to spend some time on the boring functions that are the bread and butter of translation. You need to LOOK at how freelancers, as well as LSPs, use the software in daily life.

Is it not an indictment of Studio that a dinosaur like Transit NXT - Transit! Hah! - has an incomparably better print function than Studio 2017? Printing isn't sexy, but when you want to proof-read a translation on paper with a deadline looming, being immediately able to print only the segments that you need is a huge benefit. I find myself tempted to skip a vital QA step because Studio makes it so hard to isolate and print 30 segments out of 700. That's a serious issue for me. SDL clearly couldn't care less.

Two months ago a client requested that I use MemoQ for a large project and provided a license for me to do so. I agreed, not without trepidation, but I found that I warmed to MemoQ far more quickly than I did to Studio when I first started using Studio 2014. MemoQ has its issues, but it feels eager to please. It wants to make my life easy. After ten minutes setting up I was comfortable and after half an hour I was not conscious of using a new piece of software, I was just translating.

Three years ago I wouldn't even have considered MemoQ, but things have changed. None of my clients require me to use Studio specifically and very few even use Studio packages. The trajectory of improvement over at Kilgray has been more impressive than it has been at SDL over the same period. You should be worried. I was in the business of analysing companies for twenty years and time and time again I saw companies with apparently commanding positions fail. Your market position is not secure and, by failing to address longstanding issues like these, you are allowing goodwill to erode.

Regards

Dan Lucas