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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lindelgs who wrote (5759)	10/4/2000 11:05:48 PM
From: lindelgs	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Voice Recognition (who was that anyway?)...another excerpt from Money Magazine: Roll the Dice: (page 71) If you're an aggressive investor, it makes sense to bet a small portion of your portfolio on a couple of more speculative tech stocks. They may get creamed, but there's also a chance that you'll land a huge winner. The key here is to identify companies with spectacular growth potential and jump in before they hit everyone elses radar screens. One fledgling company with tremendous promise is Boston-based SpeechWorks International (SPWX), which went public only in August. It's still small, with a market value of $1.9 billion, and it's not exactly swimming in profits yet: In the first half of 2000 it lost $13 million on meager sales of $11 million. SpeechWorks is at the forefront, though, of a major emerging trend. Its speech-recognition software allows customers to obtain automated services from corporations by speaking in a natural voice over the phone, instead of hitting a long sequence of pushbuttons. Companies that adopt speech-activated technology are able to cut costs because they don't have to hire as many operators to field customer calls. The technology can be used for an array of everyday tasks, from ordering clothes to checking flight schedules, to trading stocks. SpeechWorks has already attracted blue-chip clients like United Airlines and E-Trade. Its also formed an important partnership with AT&T which plans to offer speech-recognition technology to its business customers. "This is a huge growth area" says Joe McNay, chairman of Essex Investment Mangement, and SpeechWorks is a "true leader of the business" One caveat: This stock is crazily volatile. After going public at $20, it zoomed to $108 within 3 days, then plunged to $45 its since rebounded to $64 - about 40% off its peak siliconinvestor.com