Dear Colleague,

Speech recognition technology uses natural speech as the interface between a human dictator and a computer. Utterances are analyzed by complex algorithms and then converted into text.

The technology has gone through many refinements in order to become commercially viable today and the number of environments where the technology can be applied is growing. There are an increasing number of digital dictation solutions available, particularly for the legal and healthcare industries.

This report:

• Analyzes the key trends, drivers and inhibitors in the PC and server-based speech recognition market.
• Evaluates the  different applications for speech recognition and assesses the leading vendors in this market.
• Assesses the future trends and potential growth for speech recognition.
• Sizes the market and provides forecasts.

Key findings: 

• There are two leading vendors in the PC- and server-based speech recognition market: Nuance and Philips. These two vendors directly compete in some markets, most noticeably in healthcare and legal transcription areas and both vendors approaching the market differently and the integration of these products with other systems.
• Speech recognition initially gained traction amongst people with a disability who were unable to use a computer in the traditional way. 
• There are key job roles where the use of speech recognition is suitable, such as radiologists that have repetitive procedures and reports to create. Although there has been substantial uptake in the healthcare industry, and there are becoming more users in professional services industry, the technology is still only utilized by specific positions.