Is Linux a desktop operating system?

[paul cooke]

On Sunday 29 May 2005 20:39, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
> Tom Adelstein wrote:
> > IBM transferred their voice technology products to Scansoft. Scansoft is
> > a commercial software company and if the demand surfaced, I can see them
> > porting a lot of software to Linux.
>
> I wouldn't count on it.  ScanSoft is the Microsoft of speech
> recognition.  They are acquiring lots of companies, eliminating choice,
> and maximizing profits.  They have created a monopoly in the desktop
> speech-recognition arena.  They're working towards creating a monopoly
> in the telephony (i.e. small vocabulary, small grammar)
> speech-recognition Arena.

ah, but in the speech recognition field they have a big problem. Microsoft did 
a technology swap with Lernout & Hauspie and got the rights to use the L&H 
tech in Office. Ever since Office 2K2 came out, there has been no need for 
anyone using it to actually go out and get a separate speech recognition 
program as it's built in.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/previous/xp/speech.asp

So Microsoft have effectively squashed that market, content merely to leave 
Scansoft with the dregs. Scansoft haven't got a monopoly at all.

ps. Microsoft would have the world and his dog believe that they developed 
it... well, all they developed was fully integrating it into Office so that 
the L&H origins were hidden. But open up the help about option and there you 
will see the true origins of it.