The upcoming Web Services era will allow companies to significantly enhance the exchange of data with their customers and business partners. Companies will be able to share their data from relational databases and content management systems on the application level. International companies will be able to distribute product catalogs directly from their databases and customers will be able to search these databases through Web Services. Business will be faster and the localization industry must accommodate to the speed.

The current approach supposes that you export data from your system, let a localization services provider to localize them, and import them back to your database. With Web Services you can fully automate these tasks. You can share your data with trusted vendors and let them translate your data or content as they are being updated.

The presentation is focused on the building of a universal Web Services layer. Such a layer can be used to expose any database through Web Services and create a base for an automated localization workflow.

The main part of the presentation shows how various localization issues can be solved in this environment. It discusses the requirements for data exchange format and for the automation of localization processes. It shows possible solutions for publishing and searching localized content through Web Services. It also mentions usage of current and upcoming standards such as XLIFF, Web Services for the Translation Industry or BPEL4WS, and explores the compatibility issues. It covers not only localization aspects but also infrastructure requirements.