Letting the CAT out of the bag - or was it MT?

This paper is intended to alert all those who are involved directly or indirectly in the translation industry to the facilities offered by Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) and Translation Memory (TM). It considers some of the main functions offered by CAT in the form of Translation Memory and compares them with the basic characteristics and constraints of Machine Translation (MT). In particular it focuses on the facilities offered by Translation Memory software translation tools and assesses the benefits and implications for the translation industry and its customers.