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Technology Stocks : Fonix:Voice Recognition Product (FONX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dr. Bob who wrote (1456)	12/8/1997 11:51:00 PM
From: ed doell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3347

fonix (FONX): For the trading day of 12/8/97: Last trade... 4 13/16.... Net change for the day:... - 3/16 closing bid:... 4 5/8.... ask:... 4 13/16 Volume...138,400 Day Low: 5.... Day High:... 4 5/8 Everyone, Once again, an excellent debate. Ed Corporate snap shot (thanks John H): tscn.com fonix web site: fonix.com Equity funding announcement 10/28/97: biz.yahoo.com 8-K filing related to funding announcement: edgar-online.com fonix/Siemens announcement 11/17/97: biz.yahoo.com

To: Dr. Bob who wrote (1456)	12/9/1997 1:06:00 AM
From: Mark Cox	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3347

Bob, don't disappear. There are plenty of things to discuss and I have an alternative viewpoint on some of the responses you make. I know it may be simplistic but I have in mind that Microsoft may have wanted to simply buy control of fonix but there was no way management would let it. Also, considering some of the secrecy involved there may have been voices within Microsoft, those euphoric about the advances in HMM for example, who may have advised the negotiators not to bother. Company's placing bets on LHSPF possibly borrow from the same issue. I have my doubts, but its possible that Microsoft and SGS Thompson still hav'nt clicked about what fonx tech is supposed to represent. In fact many of the participants at Speechtek in NYC that I spoke to knew only of fonix' existence but not about its methods so that ignorance was strikingly common and still is. Here's a little comparison between the two technology's from my reading these pages. If you like a chocolate stick in your ice cream and your friend shows you one with two sticks, next time you get one, you ask for two sticks also. HMM 1 User dependant [despite shorter training times] 2 Vocab limited [due to the memory used for patterns and time taken to access and select the correct pattern. This explains why 3 vocabs generally cover domains such as law, medicine, etc] 4 Accuracy limited by technology 5 Needs lots of RAM and Hard disk space 6 Needs lots of Processor power [to speedily process the matching] 7 Cannot be placed on a chip [is this true?] 8 Due to large amounts of processor, RAM and hard disk, the technology finds use in limited areas such as text generation Despite very big advances, this remains a clumsy solution limited in scope. Fonx 1 User independant [as clearly demo'd despite simplistic demo] 2 Vocab unlimited [not demonstrated since emphasis was on the technology] 3 Accuracy can be greater than HMM since there is a correcting/context algorythm 4,5,6 Less memory required on Hard disk due to no stored word patterns I'm sure RAM use may be large also but the processor is less used since the technology can be its own processing chip. Takes up less space and can be used in myriad applications on a chip with variable amounts of memory 8 Despite delay's in development this technology promises to be most flexible and compact. If the fonx tech has these advantages, then it may well end up being the engine of choice for all of the competition who want to remain in competition. to paraphrase the BASF ad on TV "Fonx does'nt make the speech recognition system you use, it makes the speech recognition system you use better". Since LHSPF and Dragon only concentrate on speech to text and vice versa, these relatively small markets may be the only ones they service and even then they will be hard pressed not to take up the ice cream with two chocolate sticks. You are right about one general conclusion though. Investors are going to have to hope that this is truly outstanding technology [highly likely] AND that the management team can execute flawlessly. I dont think they have to execute flawlessly since they have'nt and are still on course to getting multiple deals on the table. I therefore think the odds are far more in favor of fonx than you have suggested. Parx

To: Dr. Bob who wrote (1456)	12/9/1997 3:23:00 AM
From: Randall E Westberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3347

Just an observation, Nov. 17th was the largest volume day for Fonix in a year and a half. From November 17- 19 we saw Fonix trade from a high of $7 3/8 to a low of $5 3/4 and finally settle at about $6.00. During this three day flurry of activity and volatility in the stock we also witnessed a record setting 60 posts to this thread. Any Thoughts?

To: Dr. Bob who wrote (1456)	12/9/1997 3:47:00 AM
From: franco nuvoloni	Respond to of 3347

Hi Bob, I would like to comment on LHSPF's deal with MSFT. A lot of people think that MSFT has invested in LHSPF due to their voice rec. capabilities, the fact is, as Kevin Scholfield, MSFT senior program manager for speech technology group explains in a "Voice Technology News" issue featuring the industry, that LHSPF's language capacity and translation services were the reasons MSFT chose to invest in it. This news came out on november 26th on Bloomberg, but it's 7 pages long and I can't paste it. There is one more thing to note on LHSPF, the revenues they are currently generating do mainly come from sources other than voice rec. as we would understand it. LHSPF's strength is speech synthesis, i.e. text to speech, translation services and huge vocabularies in many different languages. It appears like LHSPF hasn't developed that much over the past few years itself, but mainly bought in technology. The fact that they had to acquire KURZ is evidence that their own ASR technology wasn't as advanced and ready to be marketed as some thought. When we were looking at KURZ while independent, if I remember correctly, nobody here was in awe with that company, why should we think that after just one year they should have made a quantum leap? I don't think their ASR technology will be any better than Dragon's or IBM's one, and as Mark already conceded, todays available technology has considerably improved but does not have the necessary ingredients to totally penetrate the voice rec. market. A final word on your Siemens Intel analysis. Intel's total rev. for this year is estimated at around 25 billion $, Siemens last year's revs in telecom, information and components (i,e, semiconductor div) are approximately 23 billion $. So the total revenue line where either one of the companies could include fonix technology is about equal. We could now continue to speculate in which of the businesses fonix will get a greater margin, I leave this to you but would add that I would agree with anything you come up. As to the 10$ stock price, remember the deal was announced while fonix was trading at 7 bucks, so 10 bucks wouldn't have been to far away. Regards, Frank P.S. Hope you first take breakfeast before starting another day of debate. It's been a lot of fun and good experience in any case.