Tuesday

IPO Candidate WhiteSmoke Generates Revenue of $3.3 Million Last Quarter

Posted on GoArticles.com. See full article here

IPO Candidate WhiteSmoke Generates Revenue of $3.3 Million Last Quarter
By Katherine Belle

WhiteSmoke Inc., an English writing and translation software company seeking to go public in the U.S., published their latest numbers from quarter 1 of 2011 in the company's latest initial public offering prospectus on Monday, June 27th, 2011. The company offering is being underwritten by Rodman & Renshaw LLC and EarlyBirdCapital Inc., popular companies in the IPO scene.
WhiteSmoke has applied for Nasdaq listing under the ticker symbol “WHSM” while targeting the Education, Government and Business markets, all showing a growing demand for what this small hi-tech company offers. WhiteSmoke Inc. claims in their prospectus that though there are other companies they consider competitors in similar markets, they have yet to see anything similar to or at the level of their own solution. The Education, Government and Business markets are huge, and with the statistics in the “Industry” section of their prospectus showing the growing need for English as a common language on a worldwide scale, it seems this company has a bright future ahead of them.
The company has developed a PC solution that corrects grammar, spelling, style, punctuation and structure errors in texts as well as translates full texts and single words to and from nine languages. In addition, their product includes a Templates tab allowing the user to choose from a multitude of letter templates for instant use. A Mac version identical to their current PC version will be available by the end of this fiscal year. Also predicted to be launched by the end of this year is the WhiteSmoke Facebook application. In addition, applications for iPhone, iPad and Android are predicted to be launched by the end of 2012.
WhiteSmoke Inc., mentioned Monday that additional funding is needed to finance operations for the next 12 months. Evolution Venture Capital Fund, investors of WhiteSmoke Inc., have told the company that they are willing to provide the company with funding they require.
In addition to their flagship product, WhiteSmoke Writer, the company also offers a free trial version available for download together with toolbar applications from third-party monetization companies. Since the launch of this free product last year, it has become a huge revenue source for the company.
WhiteSmoke generated a total revenue of $3.3 million last quarter, a substantial grown from less than $1 million the year before and expect to continue to grow their operations by opening offices and hiring personnel worldwide.

Sunday

Very interesting article I found on Article Base

Spain Increases English Lessons to Decrease Unemployment

Author: Katherine Belle

Spain Increases English Lessons to Decrease Unemployment

Spain currently has an unemployment rate of about 20%, which is twice as high as the European average. According to the New York Times, more and more Spaniards are searching for employment opportunities abroad. Unfortunately, many are experiencing difficulties due to poor foreign language skills, specifically their lack of knowledge of basic English. Many adults are returning to school to learn or improve their English or another foreign language.

While the current job seekers are having a hard time because of language barriers outside of Spain, education reforms are being made to ensure that future generations will not encounter such troubles. A third of Madrid's primary schools are bilingual, and by 2015 they are hoping at least half of the schools will be teaching more languages. In addition,  more and more schools have begun employing English speaking teachers.

Spain has a long way to go because in addition to struggling with vocabulary and pronunciation, even the campaign has poor grammar. The campaign to promote bilingual education boasts the slogan "Yes, we want!". Richard Vaughan, owner of Vaughn Systems, an English teaching company, estimates that less than five percent of graduates of engineering, law or business have even a working knowledge of English.

A useful tool to help improve one's English is WhiteSmoke Software. WhiteSmoke works with hi-end technology based on both statistical algorithms and NLP, or Natural Language Processing. This allows the software to actually learn how the human mind works when it comes to writing and better understand how to correct your mistakes. In addition, WhiteSmoke 2011 includes a full-text translator that allows you to translate to 9 different languages and a multilingual dictionary that translates single words and gives you usage examples of every word you translate, allowing you to see how your translated word is used in a sentence.  For those who want to improve their English, a Writing Review feature is available as well. The Writing Review gives you a detailed score of your original text with personalized improvement tips. WhiteSmoke 2011 with the WhiteSmoke Translator is a fantastic tool for those looking to improve their English.

 

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/spain-increases-english-lessons-to-decrease-unemployment-4898319.html

About the Author

I'm an artist - I love making Jewelry and sculpting, which is what I do for a living. Another passion of mine is writing and literature - I'm obsessed with the English language (although I must say I love speaking Italian).

Monday

The Word is Out - No More Google Translate API

People all over the world are outraged with Google's latest news informing the public that the Google Translate API will no longer be available after December. More than outraged, it seems people are nervous and are frantically searching for alternatives before this December deadline to avoid loss of sales and revenues of their business.
Google refuses to give a valid reason for this decision other than a vague statement that their service has been abused. This doesn't seem to satisfy all the affiliate marketers and app developers who relied on this API for quite some time to build their businesses. While the rumors spread of a paid version of this API or of the chances of Google reconsidering their latest decision, many begin searching for alternatives such as Microsoft and WhiteSmoke.