Sometime ago, one of the leading translation software companies was advertising draft translations over the Internet for as little as five cents a word. This same company claims to be able to automatically handle gender, pluralization, verb conjugation and other grammatical structure.
Opinions have also been expressed over the Internet by seasoned translators who will tell you that translation software, used to perform Machine Translation, does not assist the translation process but actually hinders it. Regardless of the degree of usefulness of machine translation, there seems to be unanimous agreement that translators cannot be replaced, not now nor in the foreseeable future. The translation software companies admit that the output is a draft; these same companies even offer the services of translators!
Translators must be skilled in translation as a generalized technique but must also be intimately familiar with the material under discussion in the text. This holds true for all types of translation but is especially important in the case of technical translation, where accuracy is paramount. One area where the skilled translator will excel, because of his familiarity with the subject at hand, is in his ability to address a less than perfect source text. Neither Machine Translation, nor a non-technical translator would be able to do this.
Clients in need of a quality translation should rely on qualified translators. These translators should also have a strong technical background if the subject is a specialized one of a technical nature.