For Daniel Grasmick and Christopher Hearn, who head up Lucy Software, there are new markets emerging in large-deployment MT solutions.
As statistical MT tends to grab the headlines, how can legacy rules-based MT systems get their message over to potential customers?
Long experience at SAP's MultiLingual Technology Solutions Group has emboldened Grasmick and Hearn at Lucy Software to target large companies that need complete translation solutions, rather than just technology products.
"At SAP we were responsible for setting up a solution for 1,000 translators worldwide, so we know a lot about response times, workflow tools and databases in very large-scale settings. Many MT suppliers do not have this kind of expertise."
It means that Lucy can roll out a language portal for Volkswagen employees to gain MT support for communications and other short form texts in a range of languages, but also embed an MT solution in a production environment, where Hungarian shop floor staff can get on the fly translation from German on a day to day basis.
"Customers want solutions, not bits of technology they have to learn about, integrate and then update. One reason larger organizations are going with us is that we can handle the scalability involved in embedding and customizing a system inside a corporate infrastructure over the long term. For example we offer Strategic Translation Consulting for SAP Customers who need this kind of solution."
But what about the bullish SMT trend?
"What you need is a flexible, modular solution that draws on a hybrid MT system combining a mix of statistics and rules depending on data availability and text type. Without good syntax and good data, you cannot get very far."
Lucy Software is therefore getting together with partners to extend their technology base and language pairs. This is resulting in solutions that might take output generated by an SMT module and then run it through an RBMT engine to clean up the syntax.
"One problem in RBMT systems is the time it takes to do customization. We are looking at ways of shortening ramp up time by extracting terminology from translation memories, using an optimal mix of humans and technology."
Does this mean that MT could move center-stage in LSPs as well?
"Absolutely. There is a surge in demand from agencies since they are under pressure to lower prices. But we have to make our technology attractive to agencies by sharing the development risk. Very few LSPs will sink $100,000 in an MT system.
"To address this new market, we have recently been joined by Ewald Gehrmann, who has over 10 years of sales and executive-level experience at Berlitz, Trados, STAR. His task is to support rollout out to this market, as well as handling direct sales to large accounts."
The Lucy team also point out that as translators are used to manipulating text in TMs, they easily shift into post-editing mode. And good MT output is likely to be better than fuzzy match returns, where a given percentage say nothing about the linguistic quality of the target language.
As for new language pairs, Lucy Software is developing a Basque module to meet political targets in Spain in addition to their current Hispanic language offering. And they will be rolling out (Brazilian) Portuguese. As they already have Russian, they will soon be ready to serve BRIC countries.