So how do you know if Machine Translation is right for you? Researching MT software and reading feedback from actual users will help you get the full picture. For starters, I've outlined the major points below.
Don't bash Babel Fish and other free automatic translation services: they are invaluable tools to get the gist of a text in a language you don't know. And then Babel Fish comes from Douglas Adams' great novel, "The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy".