Facets of Software Localization
http://www.languagepartners.com/reference-center/whitepapers/l10nwp/triacom.htm

Dohler, Per N.
SDL International

Abstract:

That information technology has revolutionized the translator's working environment is a fact so obvious that it no longer even bears mentioning. For the vast majority of translators and their clients, computers have long since replaced typewriters and reams of paper. Modems and e-mail have replaced manila envelopes, mass storage devices have replaced drawers full of folders, CD-ROMs supplement dictionaries and encyclopedias, and more recently the Internet and its resources more and more often save us a trip to the library, while various online communities have brought many translators out of their isolation. But information technology not only offers us tools. It is itself a field in which more and more translation work is actually executed. As in other fields, this is certainly true of marketing materials, packaging materials, advertising copy, and manuals. But in the case of information technology products, it is frequently the products themselves that need to be translated. Whenever a program or process displays a word or a phrase on the screen, this means potential work for one or many translators.