[MV] Re: macspeech vs dns

[M Young]

I am responding to two email post concepts, because they are related  
for my purposes. They are about the issue of TIME.

On Sep 19, 2007, at 12:33 PM, macvoice- 
request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com wrote:
<clipped>
>
> We fully understand that there will always be people who prefer a
> specialized vocabulary, just as there are those who would prefer an
> embedded text editor. Who knows? At some point in the future, we may
> relent - but as long as MacSpeech continues to grow and we get such
> positive comments from our users - including medical professionals -
> we will continue on the path we are on. It just makes sense to keep
> doing what you are doing if you are successful at it.
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
> MacSpeech, Inc.
>
> <clipped>

> To counter your Gainesville example: I had a DNS client, a lawyer,
> who swore by DNS. I told him about iListen when he was thinking of
> moving to Mac and tried to do a little evangelism for MacSpeech. He
> did a little maths: it would cost him at least CHF 4800 in lost
> billable time to get enough samples into iListen and run through a
> few pages of dictation to get started. For that money, he could buy
> the DNS Legal, have quite a bit of change, and still have most of his
> billable hours... *That* is the mentality you're up against: these
> people make very good money, so price isn't much of an object, time
> (and therefore convenience) is.
>
> Gavin

For starters, I loathe, detest and despise Windows. Feel free to skip  
this paragraph's classic Windows/Apple story. A true life friend  
recently started school in mid life. She wanted a laptop. I suggested  
a Macbook. She said no, because she did not want to disrupt her life.  
She has always used Windows. Dell gave her a run around, but finally  
delivered her computer 3 weeks later than promised. [She must have  
thought going down to the local Apple Store and taking home her  
laptop that same trip would have been too disruptive. :)) ] She had  
her laptop for one day. I asked my wife if our friend's computer had  
crashed yet. My wife said yes but we were both puzzled by our  
friend's nonchalance because after computers crash, afterall. Our  
response was, of course, no, all computers don't crash. Sigh.

I no longer use iListen. I gave up after using it off and on from  
about 1.6.3 through summer 2007 version. DNS 8 professional in  
Windows XP Home in Fusion in OS X 10.4.10 on Mac Mini 1.66 Intel Core  
Duo with 2 GB physical RAM with Andrea USB microphone pod works great  
for me.

I am not paralyzed. I am one of those folks who wants/needs an  
iListen embedded text editor. Nothing about using voice recognition  
software is more demoralizing than wasting my time doing voice  
recognition work that becomes screwed up because I touched the mouse  
or keyboard. Chuck, I will probably not use iListen again until I can  
touch the mouse and keyboard during voice recognition. :(

I am all for the iListen professional vocabularies in medicine, law,  
etc. because it should increase the iListen user base, which will  
help MacSpeech, Inc. continue to grow. I am writing today, because  
Gavin's story rings true in my experience. I worked for a person this  
summer who bills essentially $1 for every 10 seconds of work. ($350  
per hour) Think about it. A person like him will either type for  
himself if that is most efficient or he will most likely dictate.  
Transcriptionists are often not recognized as an expense, beyond  
being called "overhead," by high priced professionals, or more likely  
the professionals see no need to waste their time doing something  
that low paid help can do. Even the high priced professionals that I  
have come across who are aware of document production costs would  
rather pay for a too large voice recognition vocabulary that does all  
they want out of the box rather than have to piecemeal train the  
voice recognition product themselves. The professional vocabulary  
needs to be in the box to achieve a perception of a turnkey solution  
that many professionals want. That is the reality that I have seen.  
Personally, I am impressed with the Learn My Writing Style, so I do  
not really see a need for the vocabularies.

Time is money. I hope that MacSpeech, Inc. is developing ways for  
taking money from folks who have a severe money to time imbalance. :)

Regards,

Michael
PS As the person who started this thread, the idea of getting a good  
microphone setup for iListen and DNS then trying iListen first makes  
a lot of sense. Just make sure that you allow enough time for  
training. ;)