New technology dramatically increases number of languages available, and enables easy translation into nearly any language
PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences has announced that it will demonstrate, at Pittcon, a new version of its Labworks laboratory information management system (Lims) that can be easily modified to provide a native language interface in nearly any language.
The Labworks ES (Enhanced Security) system now provides one of the most comprehensive language capabilities in the Lims market, including native versions in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.
The new Labworks ES software is one of the first on the market to support double-byte characters for true Asian language support.
Users will have the flexibility to select their language when they load the software. For even greater flexibility, users within a networked installation can each run different languages.
In addition, the localisation capabilities of the software have been improved so the language can even be customised during the implementation process.
For example, the interface terminology could be changed to reflect an individual organisation's laboratory workflow and business practices.
A key advantage of the way Labworks handles localisation is that the software is backwards compatible with previous versions and optional modules that have not been localised.
These modules will continue to operate in their original design alongside localised modules.
Localisation of Lims software has been a challenge in the past because converting a program to a new language usually meant modifying the source code.
PerkinElmer has taken a new approach of removing the text from the source code and putting it into a database.
Labworks developers have gone a step further by creating a new localisation tool that drastically shortens the time required to implement a new language.
The result is that PerkinElmer has dramatically increased the number of languages that it supports in a very short period of time.
"In the past, it just didn't make economic sense to create a new version for a language with relatively few users," said Donna Lococo, informatics product manager.
"Now we can easily create new versions for almost any language or application." PerkinElmer also plans to make the new localisation tools available to other development groups within the company to easily create local language versions of other PerkinElmer software that controls operation of the company's analytical instruments.
