Date:    Thu, 28 May 1998 09:54:45 -0500
<br>From:    Mark Mandel <Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM>
<br>Subject: kleenex, sheetrock, and dragon systems
<br>
<br>Here at Dragon Systems we make speech recognition software that
<br>enables people to control their personal computers and input text
<br>by voice, as I'm inputting this text entirely by voice. Although
<br>our continuous speech large vocabulary dictation program,
<br>NaturallySpeaking, has only been on the market something like a
<br>year, our discrete speech program, DragonDictate, hit the market
<br>in 1990, and since then we have become well known among those who
<br>have difficulty using a keyboard and those who deal with them
<br>professionally. But I have often noticed that people unfamiliar
<br>with the industry confuse the names of our products and of our
<br>company.
<br>
<br>The next stage has arrived: we're becoming genericized. A co-
<br>worker of mine just sent around the following email:
<br>
<br>>>>
<br> According to my hand doctor (I was visiting for treatment for
<br>another broken finger - three down, seven to go) the term "dragon
<br>systems", often misspelled, is becoming a generic term for speech
<br>recognition systems. He sees a lot of RSI [repetitive stress
<br>injury] patients, and corresponds with many doctors treating RSI
<br>patients. He is seeing and hearing a lot of sentences like:
<br>
<br>        This patient needs a dragon systems.
<br>
<br>or
<br>
<br>        My HR office wants to get me a dragon systems.
<br>
<br>Unfortunately, "dragon systems" to often shows up spelled
<br>"dragging systems" or "drag on systems" or some such variation. I
<br>am hard-pressed to understand what is going through the mind of
<br>someone writing
<br>
<br>        This patient needs a dragging systems.
<br>
<br>but the doc claims he is seeing things like this.
<br> <<<
<br>
<br>In theory these could be speakos (see my previous post), but our
<br>products all recognize their own names, and ours, better than
<br>that! Maybe these doctors are using a competing product. We take
<br>care to recognize their names, but maybe they don't return the
<br>favor.  ;-)\
<br>
<br>-- Mark
<br>
<br>       Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com
<br>    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 796-0267
<br> 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
<br>
<br>This document was created by voice with Dragon Systems'
<br>NaturallySpeaking.
<br>