In an attempt to keep up with the globalization of business, IBM on Thursday bought Language Analysis Systems, which makes software to help companies verify personal names on the basis of the origin, cultural variations, and meanings.

Privately held LAS’ selling point is its technology, which verifies the origin, cultural variations, and meanings of names by comparing and analyzing factors commonly associated with about 1 billion names around the world. That includes nicknames, titles, format changes, and typographical errors. The company has accumulated this linguistic knowledge base over its 20 years in existence. Could this software be broadened in its use to accompany existing machine translation software to enable increased contextual accuracy?

Tags: globalization | names | Language