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From: aem@ibiza.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Summary of Comments About "Watson" Voice Processing
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Date: 15 Aug 89 14:04:33 GMT
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mergvax!donnelly@decvax.dec.com (Mark Donnelly) writes:
>>I was wondering if any one as experiences or comments about Natural
>>Microsystems product called "Watson". It is a PC based voice processing
>>system that I was thinking of buying.

Whoops, sorry. I didn't see your original request.

I wrote a real estate inquiry service using the Watson system.  A month after
we had bought the system, they upgraded the software and ROMs on the board.
They charged us two hundred dollars to upgrade, though the upgrade was
merely bug fixes, serious enough to delay the project. The interface was
designed for people who didn't know anything about using a computer, and was
very awkward to write a program with. All the advanced features required buying
their "application software" or their "developer's package". The board itself
was very slow at picking up DTMF and halting outgoing speech. After some inital
tests of the system, Watson was put in a closet. We found it to have too many
problems to be used robustly in an inquiry service.

I liked the idea of Watson.  Unfortunately, we found it to be poorly designed
and extremely overpriced. ("Well, we only make a small number"-- Less than a
month after putting it in a closet, we saw Watson from mail-order houses for
less than our "dealer-incentive price")

Unless it has significantly changed, I couldn't recommend it.

(If I seem vague on some details, this was three and a half years ago..)

aem

a.e.mossberg - aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu/aem@umiami.BITNET - Pahayokee Bioregion
I have a simple philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where
it itches.				- Alice Roosevelt Longworth