IBM has no intention of developing a handwriting recognition system. It has licensed the ViaVoice technology to two other handwriting input system vendors - mainland-based Han Wang and US-based Communication Intelligence Computer Corp. Both companies sell most of their products in the mainland.
IBM also will integrate ViaVoice into the millennium edition of Lotus SmartSuite, a group of office productivity programs which is due to be shipped next month.
Corel is adding Dragon Systems' NaturallySpeaking technology to its WordPerfect Suite 8. Both IBM and Corel at first are integrating only English voice recognition.
By contrast, Microsoft said existing voice recognition technology - with up to 90 per cent accuracy - still was not ready for incorporation into its mainstream office suites.
The software giant said it would not add voice recognition into its upcoming Office 2000 software package.