A recent article in VARBusiness indicates that speech recognition has lost its reputation as a "handicapped" technology with low accuracy rates and poor performance.  Long used for those with disabilities, speech recognition is now going mainstream.  As indicated in the article, speech-recognition market consists of embedded applications, telephony and dictation.  The most active is dictation.  The solution-provider contribution is important since speech-recognition requires a great deal of customization.  "There's a large opportunity for individuals interested in adding value to the basic speech-recognition technology that's currently available," says Bill Wade, vice president of St. Louis-based Kaberline Healthcare Informatics, a physician-owned speech reseller that targets medical, veterinary, legal and corporate markets.  Wade further indicates that Kaberline has customized products to help medical facilities jump-start the digitization of medical records. "There's less need for box-pushers than there is for people with an eye toward the development of innovative ways to incorporate speech recognition into the expanding workflow of today's business."  But, ultimately, VARs are likely to benefit most from the fact that speech recognition requires a great deal of training and customer hand-holding.  "Without solid training, in fact, about half of all users outfitted with speech-recognition tools will fail to use the technology properly," says James Cox, CEO of Varna, Ill.-based VAR Crown International Distributing.  Among other factors driving the speech-recognition market, there are now voice-related standards that make application customization and development easier, the need to create more electronic documents to comply with governmental regulations, such as HIPAA, and statutes guaranteeing technology access to the disabled, such as the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, or Workers' Compensation Laws.  Both Kaberline and Crown International are Custom Speech USA Market Partners.  Congratulations to both for their contributions to the VARBusiness article. J. McAdams, "The Computer Has Ears," VARBusiness, May 29, 2006  For complete text, click here.