The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has announced its board officers for 2012. Hans Fenstermacher, Vice President of TransPerfect / Translations.com, who was just re-elected to a second consecutive term on the board, will continue as Chairperson. In 2002, Fenstermacher co-founded GALA and was the first board chair. Gary Muddyman of Conversis was appointed Vice Chair. Muddyman is a new member of the GALA board and a long-time supporter of the association and its programs. More information on GALA’s new board is available at the GALA website.

Western Standard, a provider of electronic research and translation tools, and Asia Online Pte Ltd, an international web portal company, have formed a technology alliance and partnership to integrate Fluency with Asia Online's machine translation platform.

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) has joined with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) to promote data protection and security in the outsourcing industry. The groups will work together to bring the latest information on data security, best practices, standards and thought leadership to outsourcing professionals worldwide.

Author-it Software Corporation (ASC) has launched Author-it Cloud, making their end-to-end Enterprise Authoring Platform available as Software as a Service (SaaS). Beside cost-savings the benefits of the Author-it Cloud Enterprise Authoring Platform include quick deployment of the service, higher flexibility and constant access to the latest update. Author-it will continue to support its traditional on-premises software for clients who prefer it.

Janus Worldwide and Asia Online have signed an agreement to engage in the joint development of an automated translation solution for translations from English into Russian.

Plunet has released the latest version of Plunet BusinessManager, its leading business and translation management system. The new Plunet release will feature a much simpler system for managing and processing translation projects. It offers an expanded dynamic interface to memoQ server 5.0, allowing project managers to easily create, control and handle entire memoQ translation projects within Plunet.