10th Anniversary of Wordbee – The evolution of the most comprehensive translation tool on the market

by | Jun 19, 2018

Wordbee was founded in 2008 by José Vega and Stephan Böhmig to provide a cloud-based collaborative workspace platform for the management of translation projects (TMS) and a CAT editor (Computer Assisted Translation) to those in travel and tourism, high tech, games localization, marketing agencies, and media corporations. The name of the company came from the linguistic element “word” combined with “bee,” which we chose because of how honeybees communicate with each other through signs, vibration, and signals.

The story of Vega and Böhmig was very much about being in the right place at the right time and making the most of the opportunity. They focused on translation software just when both personal computers and translation memory (TM) technology were coming of age and foresaw the role computers would soon play in translation. The market for TMS tools had existed since the 1990s and was dominated for a long time by a handful of companies, mainly in Europe.

One of the big challenges for Wordbee was to develop a strategy to convince their target clients to let go of their traditional vision of these tools, and to assure them that Wordbee’s innovative cloud solution would be a game changer for them.

Before long, small businesses as well as big enterprises entrusted Wordbee with their translation projects, benefiting from the latest technologies and a thriving team that has its clients’ best interest at heart and is constantly looking to improve the user experience.

Over the years, Wordbee’s translation management system has seen many improvements and new features, won various awards, and been implemented by hundreds of companies with more than 13,500 unique users all over the world. Here’s to 10 years of successful business, and many more that are yet to come!

Evolution of Wordbee over the past 10 years:

This timeline shows the main events which shaped our business.

  1. 2008• Wordbee is founded.
  2. 2009• The Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy - Innovation and Research chooses Wordbee Translator as an exclusive vendor.
  3. 2010• Wordbee wins the ICT 2010 paperjam award.
  4. 2011• Wordbee is awarded the Gold Seal of The European Seal of e-Excellence Award in the category "Language Technologies" during the 2011 CeBit expo in Hannover.
    • Introduction of CoDyt projects which provides easy-to-use techniques for translations and was specifically designed to handle localization/translation of CMS content or websites.
  5. 2012• Release of the Wordbee Client Portal. The portal is a dedicated space for Wordbee clients to use for requesting translations and monitoring the status of orders.
  6. 2013• Wordbee wins the LT-Innovate Award 2013 at the LT-Innovate Summit in Brussels.
    • Presentation of the Business Analytics feature at Tekom. Within Wordbee Translator, quotes and invoices can be generated for both clients and suppliers.
  7. 2014• Launch of Beebox + connectors: Beebox is a software solution to translate files, documents or content management systems (CMS) in an automated or manual manner.
    • Introduction of the New Order form which fully automates the order process, from counting words, calculating costs, creating projects and sending out jobs.
  8. 2015• Wordbee takes home the Red Herring Top 100 award at a ceremony held in Amsterdam.
    • Implemenation of the Quality Assurance panel allowing clients to run quality assurance (QA) checks and see related results.
  9. 2017• The New Editor is unveiled to the world. The interface offers multiple customization possibilities, making the work of translators, revisers and proofreaders easier than ever.
    • First ever User Meeting Event in conjuction with LT-Innovate in Amsterdam.
  10. 2018• Wordbee wins the E-commerce Berlin Award for Best Solution for International Expansion.
    • The first standalone User Meeting is organized in Brussels.
    • Wordbee celebrates its 10-year-anniversary.

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