SLS success breeds grander visions

SYRACUSE--The world is changing. It is growing smaller and smaller. People are communicating around the world. Companies are doing business globally, and it all means that people are struggling to speak each others' language-literally and figuratively.

For some businesses, the shrinking world means shrinking opportunities if they don't adapt. But for Syracuse Language Systems (SLS), a shrinking world means growing opportunities, because SLS's business is helping people learn to speak a new language. What began with All-in-One Language Fun--a CD-ROM program for kids that lets them play games with a number of different languages--progressed to Triple Play and then Triple Play Plus, which aimed at beginning and intermediate language learners in specific languages (Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, Japanese, and Hebrew), and then Your Way, which provided a self-study course in those languages.

Now, the company is generating news in education and education-software circles with Spanish, French, and English versions of Your Way 2.0 and its plans for an on-line, interactive language course in conjunction with the software product.

SLS announced plans for the online course through an area of its site on the World Wide Web (http://www.syrlang.com) in August, and in October, it made a week's worth of sample classes in French and Spanish available on the Web site, which will also be the gateway for its Language Connect University, where the courses will be offered. Registration for classes--beginning Jan. 6, 1997--opened earlier this month.

Now, SLS is looking farther afield, It recently launched a distributor relationship for its products in Japan with Matsushita Corporation, manufacturers of JVC and Panasonic electronic consumer products.

Larry Rothenberg, president, adds that the company has established distribution channels in Central and South America and in Europe. "We will be launching English Your Way 2.0 in the Latin American market just in time for Christmas," Rothenberg says.

The company has been doubling its sales annually for the last three years, and Rothenberg expects that growth to continue for the next few years because of the growth in the installed base of personal computers in foreign markets.

"There has been dramatic growth in the installed base of multimedia computers in virtually every market around the world. We are now seeing the same kind of growth in Latin America, Asia, and Europe that we saw in the U.S. two years ago, and more people are seriously considering the computer as a learning tool," Rothenberg observes.

And that bodes well for SLS.

But producing a slick and effective software package is only part of the company's long-term strategy. Certainly, Language Connect University (LCU) is part of the picture, but there is more to the company's vision. Rothenberg and the company's staff are intent in their desire to make SLS a key resource for learning language and learning about cultures around the world.

Positioning the company as the first resource which many people think of when they want to learn about a language or a culture was a key motivation for the features that SLS built into its recently revamped Web site.

"Our goal for the Web site is really to create a home base for language learners on the Web. And we are doing that by connecting them to a wide variety of information, helps, and things that are just for fun," says John O'Hara, on-line marketing manager for SLS.

Esther Zorn, public-relations specialist, notes, "The LCU section take that a step further, allowing student to read daily newspapers in the native language, learn about the culture, and test their comprehension at the same time."

LCU also features a "campus center" where students can interact directly with other students.

O'Hara has spent considerable time scouring the Web to find language and culture sites to link to the SLS site, so that students who are studying a country, or people planning to travel to a particular country, can use the SLS site as a springboard to get to other Web sites. O'Hara has set up the SLS site so that users can get into another site through a "window" or "frame" on SLS's site.

"What we found in looking for language and culture sites is that there are hundreds of sites out there, but a lot of them are not very good. We think that we have found the best ones on the Web and established cross links (in which SLS's page has a link to the other site and the othersite has a link to SLS) with them," O'Hara explains.

The heart of SLS's strategy, however, is the Your Way 2.0 series and LCU, according to Zorn. The CD-ROM program has attracted a lot of interest among-school language teachers and students, and it is selling well to consumers, she reports. And LCU is already generating a lot of interest.

"We think it is going to be very popular not just among students and language teachers but also among people planning to travel to different parts of the world, and among business people who are finding that they have to do business internationally," Zorn says.

That would be well to Rothenberg's liking, and that is the track he has been pursuing in recent months in promoting LCU. "We haven't been spending a lot of time on a broad publicity campaign because we want to keep it fairly small in the beginning. We want to maintain a controlled environment to make sure that it works the way we want it to and because it takes a while to find the right instructors," he explains, "because we have established a reputation for products that perform well."

"We have been talking to a number of corporations about getting some of their people involved when the first classes start in January," Rothenberg adds. "And it has been embraced by the people in the corporate-training community whom we have been meeting with.

"We are not limiting the first classes to the corporate customers, though. We are accepting registrations by calling (800)797-5264. And they can E-mail us from our Web site to get more information," Rothenberg concludes.

Copyright Central New York Business Journal Nov 25, 1996
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