Software for global market

Spokane-based Next IT Corp. has signed a deal that will let customers of its automated question-answering software translate information into more than 30 languages.

Until now, Next IT’s interactive “virtual expert” software was offered in English only.

The deal, announced this week with Los Angeles-based Language Weaver, Inc., means any Next IT customer can add accurate and quick translations in many languages, including Chinese, Korean and Japanese, said Alex Leventhal, the firm’s director of development.

To date Next IT, based in downtown Spokane, has announced sales of its virtual agent technology to the U.S. Army, Alaska Airlines and Merrill Lynch, before it was acquired by Bank of America. The Army version is used to answer recruiting questions at goarmy.com. Alaska Airlines’ use of the Next IT tool is as a virtual ticket agent, called “Jenn.”

Leventhal said Language Weaver has sold its products to various companies. The deal with Next IT, however, is the first in which Language Weaver’s tools are embedded into an online “avatar” Web service.

Many companies are looking to use similar tech services in order to streamline customer Web visits and ensure accurate and detailed Web-based responses, said Leventhal.

While several companies have developed online translation tools, Language Weaver is one of a few that employ statistical machine translation. That means it relies on huge volumes of already existing phrases and words to establish the most likely translation of text.