Simultaneous shipping

Simultaneous shipping (or "sim-ship") means to release all localized versions of a given software product together with the original development version.

In today's globalized world, reaching the full extent of your audience requires you to simultaneously ship all of the localized versions offered. A couple of decades ago, sim-ship was a great challenge, or impossible. Many constraints work against sim-ship: development models, long milestones, localization engineering challenges, and a slow translation pipeline with multiple translation agencies and small pools of translators. This often required in-house localizers and limited to a few languages, with delivery timelines frequently one or more months after the first release.

Today, things have changed significantly in all fronts. Ready-to-ship software updates can be available even a couple of times per day. Localization service providers can turn around a considerable volume of translations in just a few hours.

Being able to ship all languages simultaneously requires an integrated continuous localization system.