December 9, 1999 Web posted at: 10:15 a.m. EST (1515 GMT) by Nancy Weil

From...

(IDG) -- Macintosh users have been asking for a version of ViaVoice speech recognition software for that platform for a while now, and IBM is now giving them what they want.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Mac Compatible

ViaVoice Millennium Edition 1.0 is shipping now and should be in stores this week in the U.S. and Canada, priced at about $89.95. It also can be purchased online from the IBM store.

MORE COMPUTING INTELLIGENCE

IDG.net home page

Make your PC work harder with these tips

Download free PC software fast

IDG.net's personal news page

IDG.net's products pages

Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net

E-BusinessWorld

IDG.net's Windows software page

Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you

Subscribe to IDG.net's free daily newsletters

Search IDG.net in 12 languages

News Radio

Fusion audio primers

Computerworld Minute

The software is the first continuous-speech recognition software for Apple Computer's Macintosh platform, said Krishna Nathan, IBM director of consumer voice systems. There have been speech recognition applications for Mac in the past, but none that offered continuous speech recognition, he said.

The first release is available for U.S. English only, but additional language versions will be released in the first half of next year, Nathan said.

A steady stream of requests from Macintosh fans and Apple Computer led IBM to release just the single language version and add others later, he said.

"We've had a tremendous number of customers calling us and asking about this for quite a while," he said. "There is this whole Mac community that feels they have been shut out of this cutting-edge technology."

Rather than make a few simple changes and slap a "Mac version" label on the box, IBM "redesigned the application from the ground up," Nathan said.

The same recognition engine used in the Windows version is part of the Macintosh offering, but Nathan said that IBM designers were well aware of the fact that if the Apple incarnation smacked too much of the version for Windows that Mac users would probably reject it on that basis alone.

As such, the user interface is Mac friendly and the software itself operates simply, without a lot of functions, such as multiple language support, in the first version. Over time, IBM will add functions and features.

"We didn't want to load this with a whole lot of functionality. Mac users first of all wanted continuous speech. They really felt they were left out of this sort of technology ... and you can always add more functionality.

We are committed to this platform," Nathan said. "We wanted to get this out there and get some feedback and keep building on it just as we built on the Windows platform."

Feedback already has been rolling in from beta users and Nathan expects the pace of comments to pick up now that ViaVoice is available for Macs.

The software runs on Mac OS 8.5.1, 8.6 and 9.0. It requires a 233MHz Power PC processor or higher, 48MB of RAM, 200MB of hard disk and a CD-ROM drive. It works on iMac, PowerMac G3 and G4, and PowerBook G3 computers. It also requires an audio input jack and is compatible with Andrea NC-71 microphones.

Nancy Weil is a U.S. correspondent for the IDG News Service in Boston.