DNS vs. WSR
				Itamar Even-Zohar
	DNS version 10 (Preferred)	Windows Speech Recognition (WSR)	Comments
This report refers to the following languages:
	English UK, Spanish, French, German, Dutch	English UK, Spanish, French, German
Installation
Training
Tutorial
Learning
Operating systems	All Windows versions	Windows Vista, Windows 7
Direct dictation	Works in many applications, not just those that support Text Services Framework (TSF).	Works in various applications, not just Office. However, it won't work fully in applications that do not support Text Services Framework (TSF), for example Open Office, Microsoft Visual Studio.
Accuracy (dictation in MS- Word 2003)	High	High
Set of Commands	An excellent set of commands, but basically not updated since version 4. (DNS Professional has been augmented with many natural language commands.)	An excellent set of commands. In various details more advanced than DNS, but various important DNS commands missing. This can be partly compensated by the new macro add-on tool.	While DNS lacks such commands as “capitalize <WORD>”, WSR lacks commands to convert text to digits and vice versa.
Alternative commands	Can be fully created only in DNS Professional.	Can be created with the new macro add-on tool.	With the new macro tool, WSR is now more advanced than DNS Preferred.
Auxiliary features during dictation	A “result box” indicates recognition level	No “result box” or any other indication
Correction	Very good correction dialogue, which also contains a correction box (line) that enables selecting items from a list of alternates for correction or for typing the correct form.	Very good correction dialogue, but limited to correcting by voice letter-by-letter, lacking the ability to correct by selecting-and-correcting an item from a list or typing the correction.	WSR correction by voice letter-by-letter is often ineffective and may become a very tiresome time and throat consuming procedure.
[Performance configuration]	(Performance slide moved to the middle)	(Speed vs. performance not configurable)	Microsoft Speech (Office 2003) has a performance slide which can be moved towards better performance.
Vocabulary	Extensive	Not sufficiently extensive	WSR is no more advanced in this matter than Microsoft Speech 2003.
Correct form of names and concepts	Highly adequate: recognizes many names and correctly capitalizes many concepts	Not sufficiently adequate: does not recognize many names (such as “Vista”) and does not correctly capitalize many concepts	WSR is no more advanced in this matter than Microsoft Speech 2003.
Speed	Medium-High	High	WSR seems to be less speedy than Microsoft Speech 2003, but it may vary with the amount of RAM.
[Performance configuration]	(Performance slide moved to the middle; free memory: 400-530 MB out of 1 GB)	(Speed vs. performance not configurable; free memory: 400-530 MB out of 1 GB)
Navigation
Editing
Macro language	DNS Preferred offers only textual macros (the professional version offers a full macro language).	The new macro add-on tool offers a full macro language. The current version is operative in all languages.	I do not know how these languages compare because I haven’t been able to test DNS Professional.
Memory Management	1 GB of memory should be sufficient.	2 GB of memory seem to be a minimum for Windows Vista or Windows 7 .	Both should work with less, but quite sluggishly.
Updating and backups	Efficient tool for exporting and importing User Profiles.	An add-on tool (since May 2009) for exporting and importing User Profiles.
Language Switching	Acceptable (implemented via speech user switching: takes about 1 minute)	Highly inconvenient and problematic (implemented [1] via main language / display language switching: 4-5 operations; 1-2 minutes, or [2] via Computer User switching)	Language switching in WSR is explained in my document http://speech.even-zohar.com/Multilingualism_Vista.htm.
Support of Languages	English (5 varieties), Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese	English (2 varieties), Spanish, French, German, Chinese (2 varieties), Japanese	MS Speech 2003 has only English U.S., simplified Chinese, and Japanese.
Multilingualism	Real multilingualism (the ability to switch between languages in the same document) not available.	Real multilingualism (the ability to switch between languages in the same document) not available.
Getting Language Modules	No central store for buying various language modules. Languages can be purchased only from local Nuance or other resellers in various countries.	Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 Ultimate users can download all available language modules (as Language Packs) from Microsoft Website via the Update Windows feature.	Nuance makes it extremely hard on prospective customers. Buying various languages is inefficient and deterrent because of the high costs with multiple shippings and the superfluous duplication of the program and microphones (the installation of language modules does not require the entire program to be re-installed).