BERLITZ Ireland, which operates a software localisation business, is to create 150 new jobs which will almost double its workforce to 270 people.
The company, which has premises in Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock, is recruiting the new staff to cope with a substantial increase in turnover and concentrate more on the growing area of multimedia.
Most of the new jobs are for software engineers with a third level qualification. The company's original expansion plans envisaged reaching 270 staff within three years, but these are already being revised upwards.
We'll have 250 staff by June, and it will go past 270 very quickly," according to Mr Brian Kelly, the western European vice president of Berlitz International. The Irish operation's main business is localising software for multi national customers including Microsoft, Oracle and Lotus, and its order books have never been fuller.
Last year's launch of Microsoft's Windows 95 was a particularly busy period for the company as it was responsible for the full translation and localisation of the Danish and Norwegian versions of the new operating system.
The Irish company is a subsidiary of Berlitz International, which employs 4,000 people and has sales of £300 million. It is involved in language training, translation and publishing, but is probably best known for its range of phrase books and guidebooks.
Berlitz Ireland sends most of the actual text translation work to one of its sister offices for translation by native speakers, while some staff with language skills are also employed in Dublin to work on the more technical "user interface" translations. The software is then localised and tested in Dublin.
Turnover for the last 12 months was £10 million, but this is expected to grow to £13 million this year. Mr Kelly declined to give exact profit figures but said Berlitz's corporate goal was to operate on margins of about 10 per cent.
The expansion, which is being supported by IDA Ireland, comes as Berlitz Ireland celebrates its 10th birthday. The company was set up as Softrans Ireland under the IDA's Enterprise Development Programme by Mr Kelly, who had previously worked for Apple Computers.
He and a number of colleagues identified a niche market for software localisation in Ireland and, within six years, Softrans had achieved a turnover of £1.6 million and employed 35 people. In 1991, Mr Kelly sold 51 per cent of Softrans to Berlitz for an undisposed sum.
Softrans was to have been sold outright but, at that time, Berlitz was owned by companies controlled by Mr Robert Maxwell, whose sudden death adversely affected the deal. A controlling 51 per cent was acquired by Berlitz in 1991 and an option to acquire the remaining shares was exercised in September 1994.
Berlitz retained the Irish management, and the Dublin operation was selected as European headquarters for all its translation business. Mr Kelly has recently been appointed vice president of all Berlitz International's western European operations and has responsibility for its publishing, translation and language instruction divisions.
