The adoption of speech technology has grown in recent years, but the software is still prone to frustrating and sometimes amusing glitches as it tries to deal with a variety of accents and colloquialisms, as anyone who's dialed into a voice-recognition system can attest.

'This will allow customers (of) both companies to further extend their use of speech technology,' ScanSoft Chairman Paul Ricci said in a statement. ScanSoft said the deal would expand its reach into China, Germany, Japan and Latin America, and also add Mac-compatible technology to its product line.Īlthough IBM and ScanSoft sell speech software products that compete with each other in some markets, they said combining forces would help to expand the overall market for speech software. IBM will now offer the software in all 20 available languages.Īnd third, ScanSoft said it will distribute IBM's ViaVoice desktop dictation products. RealSpeak TTS, text-to-speech software that can understand and say aloud 20 languages, is used in applications for telephony servers, PCs and embedded devices. ScanSoft also is expanding its RealSpeak TTS licensing deal with IBM. DirectoryAssistance is a speech-enabled directory assistance service. VoiceRequest lets callers connect to people by saying their name aloud.

Under the agreement, IBM will help ScanSoft port its VoiceRequest and DirectoryAssistance products to WebSphere, IBM's Java server software suite that businesses use to build and implement custom applications. ScanSoft, which makes imaging, speech and language automation software, said it's offering its telephony products to customers of IBM's Websphere for the first time, in a move that will expand the reach of ScanSoft's products.

Software maker ScanSoft said it has struck new speech technology deals with IBM and expanded some existing agreements, a move the companies hope will expand the global market for speech technology.

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