UK executives want more voice recognition technology

UK captains of industry are betting that voice-activated technology will replace keyboards and mice in future, but are less convinced by the prospect of a paperless office.

Some 72 per cent of the 102 main board directors from the UK's 500 largest companies that were interviewed by Mori predict that speech technology will take over from typing. However, although nearly a third would like to see a paperless office, only 12 per cent expect to escape paper work in future.

Andrew Collinson, head of business and marketing for BT Cellnet, which commissioned the survey, said: "New technology is often assumed to be unappealing to allegedly technophobic business leaders. This myth is well and truly exploded by the fact that most senior business people in this country are adopting the latest communications technology and are looking forward to the next phase of development." And the survey revealed a nation of technology-inclined top dogs addicted to email and the Internet.

Some 95 per cent have access to email in the office and nearly a quarter can not wait for new technology that will mean accessing the Internet from mobile phones becomes quicker and easier.

Some 80 per cent have Net access at work, while 27 per cent access the network from their laptop.

See also:

L&H buys speech rival Dragon

Speech recognition software vendor Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) has snapped up arch-rival Dragon Systems in a deal worth about $600m (£378m) in stock.  28 Mar 2000

Speech operated PDAs to debut at Cebit

Speech technology specialists Lernout and Hauspie will this week demonstrate a prototype of a PDA that responds to spoken commands.  21 Feb 2000

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