September 9, 1999 Web posted at: 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT) by Nancy Weil

From...

(IDG) -- Talking to Susan Cheng and Eric Silberstein in the same room at the same time is a lot like imbibing a huge quantity of strong coffee. They have a similarly energizing effect, even on a steamy afternoon in their office in north Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard University where the two met.

Cheng is the vice president of marketing and Silberstein is the chief executive officer of Idiom Technologies Inc., a startup that provides software and services for companies that want to make their Web sites available in more than one language. Idiom's software focuses on simplifying the process of translating Web site content.

Cheng and Silberstein, both 23, co-founded Idiom along with Ken Shan, who is now the chief technology officer, in January 1998, and they feel they got enough of a jump on what has become a hot market that they can stay ahead of the rapidly growing ranks of competitors.

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Of course, that's what company founders want us to believe, and so that's always part of the pitch. I tend to ignore most pitches from startups, telling them to ring back when they actually have a product to talk about. But Idiom called when they did have software ready to go and mentioned two magic words: "Web globalization." Coupled with an approach devoid of marketing hype, they snared my interest.

They did the same thing with Lycos Inc., based up the highway in Waltham, Massachusetts. Lycos offers 13 portal sites targeted at different nations across Europe and Asia, with plans under way to push into Latin America. Lycos also owns an ever-expanding "network" of Net companies, including Tripod Inc., a home-page building site.

Lycos had been searching, somewhat fruitlessly I gather, for a one-shot tool that eases the chore of constantly translating dynamic Web sites into various languages, and came across Idiom, whose software allows developers and designers to "tag" what needs to be translated and uses a process called "linkage."

The basic idea connects text from the various Web sites run by global companies so that developers and translators can easily find what needs to be translated. A workflow component automatically sends e-mail to translators when changes have been made that they need to translate.

Idiom is close to releasing version 2.0 of its software, incorporating "linkage" and other changes recommended by customers.

While it's also standard marketing practice to tout how responsive companies are to the demands of customers, Stephanie Haag, the international program manager at Lycos, said that Idiom's willingness to listen and make changes is what won them the deal with Lycos. Lycos also liked the breadth of the Idiom product.

"We just didn't find anybody else that was able to handle the same page volume," she said. "We have just so many things running on our site. That was quite challenging -- to really cover the whole site with one package."

Idiom is obviously much more interested in technology and product development than in creating a corporate image. The company's new office is spartan and the decor, dominated by bean-bag chairs and soda can pyramids, tends toward the Undergraduate Scheme. The view from its windows was obviously not a concern for the young entrepreneurs -- the landscape resembles more the industrial Midwest than their neighboring and picturesque alma mater, Harvard University.

"The thing we're most proud of is not how young we are, but how fast we've been able to grow," said Cheng, who was born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada.

The co-founders graduated from Harvard last year and took with them the seeds of Idiom, planted when Silberstein worked as an intern in Beijing for Microsoft Corp. and saw the "brute force" methods used to translate global Web sites, Cheng said. Silberstein, who obviously thrives on technology all the way down (or up, depending on one's perspective) to the geekiest engineering level, knew there had to be a better way.

Soon after its founding, Idiom released its WorldServer technology that links Web infrastructure -- code, programming languages -- with translators and authors who create global sites. The company has added a strong service component because that's what customers want, and expects to derive half of its revenue from services.

Silberstein and Cheng also are focused on hiring more seasoned members of the management team. They recognized early on that they needed veterans who could steer them along, by allowing wild, creative ideas to surface but pulling them back to earth from time to time.

Idiom hopes to boost its pool of 25 employees by at least another 10. But even in Cambridge, a hotbed for bright, eager techies, "it is hard to find high-caliber people," Silberstein said.

Interested applicants, it should be noted, won't need to bring along their own caffeine.