TRANSLATION IN CLOUD COMPUTING: A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

Cloud computing is becoming more and more widespread in the internet-related world. Regarding the fact that it is a new term and notion over the last years, there is no doubt, why it arises so many pros and cons among the professionals and non-professionals. Any innovation provokes its advocates and opponents and cloud computing is no exception. Having been shared by millions of clients (users), the resources can also be reallocated by demand and per demand. The cloud can help us do some collaborative work together, saving on the time and funds when working in traditional way. The authors of this issue (foreign languages department of the law institute) face problems of fast and effective translations of some documents. The traditional collaboration of translators is usually 20-30% more time-consuming than the cloud is. This extra time is a luxury to spare. Unlike the traditional system, in the cloud we no longer need to worry about the latest updates. These updates are not only deployed automatically without the user intervention, update cycles for cloud-based systems are also typically much shorter than those for traditional software products. The only thing to do now for a professional linguist is to work and make sure the remuneration is on time and accurate. The question that arises is: is the cloud so helpful to give us simultaneous access to the file to see each other's work, then why there are people opposing the cloud? Is it due to computer illiteracy or other ideas? The proponents of the cloud give a few reasons pro. Among them is reliability, easy access and tight security, while the opponents name their cons: first, you depend on the internet access. Then it is privacy that we lose: having data stored in the cloud, you lose your control over its security (the server is in another company's premises, sometimes territory). When scaling some pros and cons of the cloud translations, we come across the fact that translation memory in the cloud is available to all the users of that system. This is when we face a dilemma: on the one hand we speak about the open world, on the other hand there need to be non-disclosure. Is that not hypocrisy? Yes and no. First of all, any company may have some vulnerable information; and second, why should we forget competitiveness? Even if all the precautions are followed, then one important thing remains: some translators are more qualified than others, so they are still higher paid. What will we see if all the translation data is available for every member of the translation community? It may bring to equal payment.