By Felicity Ussher, 28 March 2000 17:39
NEWS Dragon Systems, one of the top three voice recognition software suppliers, is to be bought by rival developer, Lernout & Hauspie (L&H). L&H has offered $600m for Dragon, whose list of multinational clients includes Boeing, Citibank and Deutsche Bank. Massachusetts-based Dragon employs 170 research scientists around the world. L&H said that by combining resources - and the Dragon NaturallySpeaking and L&H Voice Xpress product ranges - it will be able to enter new markets. The automotive, data mining and handheld device markets have been targetted. The software is used as an alternative to a keyboard or mouse. The proposed merger between the companies leaves IBM's ViaVoice - the third leading speech recognition product - on its own, although it is typically packaged with desktop productivity software from IBM subsidiary Lotus. Microsoft owns a major stake in L&H and the deal also polarises competition between Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite as the speech recognition package of choice. L&H also recently acquired Dictaphone, which supplies speech services to the healthcare and legal markets.
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