L&H reshuffle costs 1200 jobs

Troubled speech recognition vendor Lernout and Hauspie (L&H) has cut 1200 jobs worldwide.

The firm, which was last week granted a Concordaat (bankruptcy protection) by a Belgian court after an initial refusal, is planning a complete reorganisation, including a possible name change.

Chief executive John Duerden said a "new L&H" will no longer sell directly into horizontal markets, but will appoint a "republisher" to market products. He confirmed that L&H will still use the channel for vertical markets.

With its new business strategy, Duerden said the company will focus on eight markets, including healthcare, language translation, licensing and mobile markets.

Management structures will change, but Duerden refused to comment on the prospect of founder Jo Lernout remaining with the company.

Meanwhile, L&H's voice recognition subsidiary Dragon is still involved in a legal battle with UK software developer AllVoice. The firm, which released WordExpress voice recognition software in 1995, filed two more injunctions against Dragon in the US courts last week.

Despite L&H's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Dragon still ships its Naturally Speaking Version 5 software, which AllVoice claims breaches its US and UK patents.

John Mitchell, managing director, said AllVoice secured UK and US patents for its software, but alleged that Dragon released similar software shortly afterwards, infringing patents.

"This has continued for more than two years," he said. "We cannot sell our software when Dragon is including it in its products for free."

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