In 1966, the U.S. government-issued ALPAC report offered a prematurely negative assessment of the value and prospects of practical machine translation systems, effectively putting an end to funding and experimentation in the field for the next decade. It was not until the late 1970s, with the growth of computing and language technology, that serious efforts began once again. This period of renewed interest also saw the development of the Transfer model of machine translation and the emergence of the first commercial MT systems.
While commercial ventures such as SYSTRAN and METAL began to demonstrate the viability, utility and demand for machine translation, these mainframe-bound systems also illustrated many of the problems in bringing MT products and services to market. High development cost, labor-intensive lexicography and linguistic implementation, slow progress in developing new language pairs, inaccessibility to the average user, and inability to scale easily to new platforms are all characteristics of these second-generation systems."
A number of companies are specialized in machine translation development, such as Lernout & Hauspie, Globalink, Logos or SYSTRAN.
Based in Ieper (Belgium) and Burlington (Massachussets, USA), Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is an international leader in the development of advanced speech technology for various commercial applications and products. The company offers four core technologies - automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), text-to-text and digital speech compression. Its ASR, TTS and digital speech compression technologies are licensed to main companies in the telecommunications, computers and multimedia, consumer electronics and automotive electronics industries. Its text-to-text (translation) services are provided to information technology (IT) companies and vertical and automation markets.
The Machine Translation Group of Lernout & Hauspie comprises enterprises that develop, produce, and market highly sophisticated machine translation systems: L&H Language Technology, AppTek, AILogic, NeocorTech and Globalink. Each is an international leader in its particular segment.
Founded in 1990, Globalink is a major U.S. company in language translation software and services, which offers customized translation solutions built around a range of software products, on-line options and professional translation services. The company publishes language translation software products in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and English, and finds solutions to translation problems faced by individuals and small businesses, to multinational corporations and governments (a stand-alone product that gives a fast, draft translation or a full system to manage professional document translations). Globalink explains its corporate information on its website as follows: