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To: Kerry Sakolsky who wrote (4243)	5/15/1999 9:49:00 AM
From: bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18366

This is interesting; May. 14, 1999 (Computer Reseller News - CMP via COMTEX) -- Boston - Computers that understand humans are commonplace in movies, but the phenomena no longer is restricted to science fiction. Now doctors, lawyers, accountants and a growing number of general computer users are taking advantage of speech-recognition software. Experts predict computer operating systems will ship with speech-recognition features in the next two to five years. Meanwhile, there is a constant stream of newer, better speech-to-text applications. Speech-recognition developers are forging new alliances and researching ways to make computers listen and speak. All this activity around speech has created an emerging market for VARs. "I'm a practicing orthopedic surgeon. I bought voice-recognition software for my office five years ago, said, 'This is fun,' and opened up a company to sell voice-recognition software very shortly thereafter, " said Dr. Eric Fishman, president of 21st Century Eloquence, a Palm Beach, Fla.-based reseller. Selling speech product has exceeded the doctor's expectations. "We're a seven-figure company," Fishman said. "The only thing we sell is speech recognition. We sell hundreds of packages a month. They are for the most part sales of $500 to $2,000." A handful of vendors have carved out leads in this market. Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, Burlington, Mass., plans to form a joint venture with Intel Corp. to develop electronic-commerce and telephony solutions. For its part, IBM Speech Systems will work with Royal Philips Electronics to review, license, standardize and develop language technology. Dragon Systems Inc., Newton, Mass. is reaching out to VARs and the enterprise with a volume licensing program and version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the high end. NaturallySpeaking Enterprise will be sold only through volume licensing agreements, said Roger Matus, vice president of marketing at Dragon Systems. Olympus and L&H partnered to bring speech to the mobile market. When it ships next month, the Olympus DS-150 digital recorder will let users dictate notes into a recorder and later use speech recognition to transcribe wave files into text. As part of the IBM-Philips collaboration, Philips, the Netherlands, plans to license Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM's text-to-speech technology in future products. SpeechWorks International Inc., Boston, introduced an application that lets employees and customers access SAP AG enterprise resource planning applications by speaking over the phone. Software titan Microsoft Corp. also has its ear to the ground in speech recognition. The Redmond, Wash.-based giant has 25 people-primarily individuals with Ph.D.s in linguistics-trying to determine ways to make computers understand language the same way people do. Microsoft's Natural Language Processing group is adapting its research to bolster search engines and translation software programs as well as text-to-speech and speech-to-text. Microsoft has a beta speech application, Microsoft Voice, but has yet to productize the technology. I wonder if Philips device will have our MicroOS inside. Hmm.....