>>>There is nothing rudimentary or limited with its macro creation ability. You can record ViaVoice macros into any programme that you want.<<<

We are familiar with ViaVoice’s Windows specific and program specific macro capabilities but we don't think you would be making this claim if you had experienced real macro creating tools like those in NaturallySpeaking Pro 9 or KnowBrainer 2006.  ViaVoice is capable of nothing more than extremely rudimentary macros which you record in real time and play back in real time.  We realize that you can speed up macro deployment but if you need to slow down a segment of the command to wait for a window or process to appear, you'll have to slow down the entire command and if you write a lot of commands, you will actually slow down ViaVoice’s overall performance.  Frankly, the 1992 version of DragonDictate was vastly superior to the command technology included in ViaVoice and we know because IBM asked us to voice automate ViaVoice 8 in 2000.  As an experiment we duplicated the KnowBrainer Start Paragraph command which presses {Ctrl+Down}, {Left Arrow}, {End} and strikes the {Enter} Key twice.  This process took nearly 5 seconds in ViaVoice 8 but took less than one second in NaturallySpeaking.  Although we can list a lot of macro limitations we will just mention one more: If you wanted to create a command that would page up or down 1 to 1000 times it would require 2000 separate commands in ViaVoice or just one command in KnowBrainer or NaturallySpeaking.  NaturallySpeaking also includes a macro recorder, which we suspect was copied from ViaVoice but literally no speech recognition experts recommend actually using it.

>>>How do you know Nuance has no intention of supporting ViaVoice? Has somebody at Nuance or IBM given you inside information?<<<

IBM is no longer in the picture.  They gave up all profit and advertising rights to ViaVoice in a stock swap with ScanSoft, now Nuance.  Other than from an advertising point, Nuance doesn't support ViaVoice.  We do not know with absolute certainty that ViaVoice is going to be discontinued because the decision hasn't been finalized but it is definitely being considered.  As far as inside information is concerned; we work for Nuance and are gold certified/licensed by Nuance which basically means that we are privy to some inside information.

>>>At this stage, admittedly there has been no further development. That is not to say that it might not be developed in the future, unless Lunis Orcutt knows something that the rest of us have not heard.<<<

There is DEFINITELY NOT going be any further development of ViaVoice and Nuance has informed us of this decision.  We are still waiting to see if ViaVoice will work with Windows Vista but if it doesn't, Nuance has no intention of making any changes because in their eyes, ViaVoice is dead.  Simply put, technology is leaving ViaVoice behind.  With the exception of one Computer Magazine article, every single review we got our hands on, that compared ViaVoice 10 to NaturallySpeaking 7 rated NaturallySpeaking 7 as being slightly more accurate.  We found NaturallySpeaking 8 to be 23% more accurate than DNS 7 and DNS 9 added an additional 15% higher accuracy for a minimum total of 38% higher accuracy.  In other words nearly all speech recognition experts find NaturallySpeaking to be significantly more accurate than ViaVoice 10 which is exactly the same product, from a speech algorithm point of view, as ViaVoice 10.5.  It simply isn't in Nuance's best interest to throw development money after ViaVoice when they need to pump all of their resources into NaturallySpeaking in order to compete with Vista.  Logistically speaking, it's a KnowBrainer

>>>How can Lunis Orcutt be so certain that ViaVoice won't be available next year?<<<

We cannot be certain but it certainly seems like a very good possibility.  We can’t imagine why anyone would want to jump on the ViaVoice bandwagon at this point in time.  By next year the choices are going to be between NaturallySpeaking and Vista; not NaturallySpeaking and ViaVoice.  The only thing ViaVoice has going for it is price.  From a macro point of view, ViaVoice doesn't even compare to the 1992 version of DragonDictate, let alone NaturallySpeaking Professional and before you get defensive about this, have you ever used NaturallySpeaking Professional?  You were trying to make a comparison between the 2 products but it doesn't seem like you have any real NaturallySpeaking Professional experience.  We have used and compared both ViaVoice and NaturallySpeaking Professional.  We appreciate your opinion that we should stop bashing ViaVoice but we feel compelled to tell people what to expect.  The primary reason why we don't want people to purchase ViaVoice is because we feel that there is a high probability that it will not work in Windows Vista and it won't be around by next year.  That means everyone who purchases ViaVoice this year would be left in the proverbial lurch and we feel they should be aware of this distinct possibility before purchasing ViaVoice.  The fact that ViaVoice isn't even sold over-the-counter in the US should tell you something.  We also feel that potential customers should be aware of that NaturallySpeaking is significantly more accurate.  We apologize for our aggressive stance but from our point of view, ViaVoice is much like DOS and will soon go the way of the dinosaur.

You mention that we have only been on this forum for 6 weeks.  That's true but we post on 3 other speech recognition forums, host our own speech recognition forum (which we paid a king's ransom for) and have responded to around 20,000 questions.  We realize this forum’s original focus was aimed mostly at ViaVoice and we don't hear too many questions about ViaVoice on the other forums but time marches on and things change.  There will always be those who are satisfied with limited out of date technology, like Word 97 but we think most people will demand more

KnowBrainer Support Staff - Lunis Orcutt

Dictated with DNS 9, KnowBrainer and UniVoice