Traditional businesses - from computer component makers to gourmet coffee retailers - are finding the Internet has made it easier than ever to move into international markets. Potomac region software companies are stepping up to enable businesses to operate Web sites and run back-end systems in the native tongue and currency of other countries.

Companies that have always specialized in translation products are finding their customer base growing rapidly, while others are adding multiple language capabilities to their existing offerings to ensure they stay competitive.

Icode Inc. of Chantilly, Va., is about to release its enterprise software suite, called Everest, which will operate in five languages, and can translate both language and currency on the fly. It works both on Web sites that a business's customers view, and internally, so that a company's European staff can work in their native language.

Icode, based in Chantilly, Va., is just one example of a company building software to profit from an increasingly global marketplace.

"Because competition is worldwide in every market, companies need to look outside their borders if they want to grow to any degree," said Keith Collins, executive director of the International e-Business Consortium in Washington, D.C. "Fifteen or 20 years ago it wasn't as extensive. These days you have to look overseas if you want to maintain your market share. It's no longer an option."

The revenue potential is enormous - $4.0 billion for software localization and $3 billion for Web localization by 2006, according to a study released this month by research firm Allied Business Intelligence, in Oyster Bay, N.Y. Icode's Everest will be available in English by August, and in Spanish, German, Italian and French by the end of the year, said Ali Jani, the company's vice president and a co-founder. That means staffers at a U.S. company's European headquarters in Germany can navigate a German user interface, write their paperwork in German and use Deutsch marks for currency. When it's viewed in the U.S. office, the document is in English.

Meanwhile, if a Web surfer in Milan pulls up the company's Internet site, it will appear in Italian, with prices expressed in lira based on current exchange rates. Icode, drawing on a cadre of translators, will add more languages next year.

"It's becoming a global economy with the Internet," Jani said. "We wanted to create a program that can be used by everyone. You can run your Windows operating system in Spanish, so why not the e-business software? This is the missing link in many [e-business] packages, they don't have cross-country linking of products. Currently what's out there is customized solutions that cost millions of dollars."

A typical small business will spend about $75,000 to implement Everest, and larger engagements could run to $600,000, he said. The company plans to give away 8,000 single-user copies via download, to build brand recognition quickly.

Companies that make more limited software are also waking up to the need to go global. Keyva Technologies Inc., in Ashburn, Va., is licensing real-time translation technology that will work with Short Messaging Services (SMS) transmissions between wireless devices, and with Web chat through Keyva's Maestro chat client.

"We really are dealing with a global community now," said Jack Permison, Keyva's founder and president. "With most of the barriers to entry being brought down by the Internet, it's an expanded business market."

While the market for translation and related services is still several years from peaking, it has already begun to soar.

Trados Inc, an Alexandria, Va., company that makes translation software, has seen a boost in sales and revenue that started about a year ago, said Mike Kidd, vice president of worldwide marketing for the company. He declined to say how much revenue has increased, but termed it "significant."

"I see it progressing fairly rapidly. I can only speak to our own internal situation, but we're generating the revenue that we are with very limited resources," he said. "The increased opportunity is very significant. We're barely seeing the tip of the iceberg."

The potential market for software companies isn't limited to smaller businesses, said E. Smith Yewell, president and chief executive officer of Welocalize.com. The Frederick, Md., company provides consulting and services to companies as they go global.

"From the smallest widget maker to the Fortune 100, there's often no difference between the two. Only about one-third of the Fortune 100 even have their Web sites in more than one language," he said. "It's not uncommon that clients start to see some demand and [then] build their global infrastructure around it," rather than planning for the demand.

But until recently localization software has been available only to bigger companies because it was provided only by big-name consulting and software companies - customized solutions costing millions of dollars, said Lee Vaccaro, president and chief executive officer of BCD 2000 Inc., a computer retailer in Tampa, Fla., and an early adopter of Icode's Everest.

Vaccaro, a longtime user of Icode's Accware office software, shut down his company in early 1999, as he watched dot-coms rise up and take away business. He re-launched the company only when he learned of Icode's new product, and plans to start working on building a presence in Spain and South America in about three months.

"I needed something that was going to spin me ahead into the 21st century with an international presence. The software existed [in 1999], but [the vendors] wanted $2 million," he said. "I'm paying a tenth of what I would have."

Businesses also should thoroughly research the country they are expanding into, said Alain Hanash, chief executive officer and co-founder of Multicity.com Inc. in Vienna, Va. The company makes hosted software tools for auctions, online chat and other Internet communication functions in several European languages as well as in Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

"They really have to understand how people are accessing the Internet, who's going online, what time they're online, what they want to buy. They can't just take the American model and apply it to the rest of the world," he said. Multicity's products can be used with wireless devices, a key element in opening up many non-American markets, he added.

"Translating your Web site is only half the job. Making it accessible to a foreigner with different cultural expectations is important," said Collins of the eBusiness Consortium. "Creating a presence in each individual locale is important to local consumers."