IBM ViaVoice 98 Executive Edition

IBM ViaVoice 98 Executive Edition

PRO: Good simple word recognition, improved navigation and design

CON: Poor recognition of proper names and acronyms, slow inside some apps

If you want to navigate your desktop by mouth instead of by mouse, the $149 ViaVoice 98 Executive Edition is a good choice, because it offers the smoothest control over the Windows desktop. But while this year's model vastly improves on earlier editions of the product, it can't match Dragon for overall accuracy.

ViaVoice did well with the plain-text sections of the test letter but stumbled over some proper names and acronyms. For example, "Bernardo" was rendered as 'Bernad O', "Westwood" as 'West would it', and "Peterborough" as 'Peter burrow'. This sank its initial accuracy rate significantly. In my experience, the more context I provided for each word, the likelier ViaVoice was to recognize it.

Like Dragon, IBM streamlines the task of switching between dictation, correction, spelling, and command modes. Say what you want to do, and the package is usually smart enough to interpret it correctly. Occasionally, I had minor problems making ViaVoice 98 understand a navigation command (such as "move up four lines"). My success rate went up when I issued each command in a clipped monotone--I got the eerie feeling that ViaVoice 98 was training me, instead of the other way around.

You can use ViaVoice directly inside such applications as Word, Excel, and Internet Explorer Mail. Dictation within Word is almost instantaneous, but for other apps you have to wait briefly while your PC mulls things over in the background. Still, ViaVoice 98 has a better head for figures than Dragon: To tell ViaVoice to put $23,432 in an Excel cell, all I had to do was say "twenty-three thousand, four hundred thirty-two dollars."

ViaVoice 98 also gave me the best control over Windows' desktop. Say "open Excel" to launch your spreadsheet, or the name of a drop-down menu to open it. You can also choose buttons (like "OK" or "Cancel") by voice. If ViaVoice does not recognize your command, you can train it to decipher your pronunciation, but I seldom had to resort to this tactic.

So if you want (or need) to minimize your day-to-day keyboard operations, the ViaVoice 98 package is a good choice. But its problems with initial accuracy are still severe enough to be troubling.