Story,

Thanks as always for the good perspective. It is encouraging to know you are optimistic regarding the Simulscribe agreement.

I don't see voice-to-email being the "next big thing" for the mass market because computer translation is still too inaccurate to handle it 100% electronically and the added cost of using proof readers ($30 per month for unlimited PhoneTag service, for example) makes it too expensive for most people.

For a target niche market, particularly executives, sales staff and other business people who receive a high volume of voice mail and/or would benefit from the ability to forward it within an organization, it could become an important efficiency tool. That is a very, very big niche.

It is also possible voice recognition and translation tools may improve enough to make electronic translating much more accurate. One of my many 100% wrong tech predictions was back in the 1990's after reading about efforts to develop "spell checker" for word processors. I stated confidently spell checker could never work because English was far too complex. Oops.

My 2009 Ditech annual report arrived in the mail yesterday. I am still plowing through it but it is an interesting read and in my opinion, well written. It is not easy to explain telecom technology in terms simple enough even an apple grower can understand some of it. For the experts on the chatboard, do you read anything new or worth noting?

One of the interesting numbers is that Ditech invested $50 million in R&D in just the past three years. One would presume there is still some value in there somewhere.

Good luck to everyone.

Fujigrower@gmail.com