Feature

Dictating digitally

Dictating digitally

I am sure that a large percentage of readers will already be aware of the existing market opportunities for digital dictation on a global scale. I am equally confident that many readers will have heard of BigHand as it is a well established business, which is driving hard to sustain its own market segment within a competitive legal services environment.

Do not dismiss

In my opinion, some of the applications that are targeted at an enterprise audience are dismissed by the masses within the industry as they are considered too complex, or perhaps not for them. I am not ashamed to admit that I could have been grouped in this category until recently because, let’s be honest, while we all maintain an active interest in the business world around us, our primary concern has to be our own products, services and

businesses.

However, having spent some considerable time getting to grips with this product during the big show in Barcelona and also for the purposes of this review, it has become obvious to me that this is simply an enormous market that everyone could benefit from understanding further.

The basics of the application are, as with the Liberty software previously described, relatively simple; it allows a user to digitally dictate notes directly to their own server or network.

 

Behind the scenes

The complexity again appears behind the scenes when the power of the BigHand solution really comes in to its own. Postrecording, an encrypted sound file is transferred instantly and securely to the user’s available secretarial support, wherever it may be located across the globe. For feeearning individuals, time is, quite literally, money, and fully utilising their own time is absolutely paramount.

BigHand recently announced what it called its ‘most advanced and complete set of capabilities to date’. This update is the third iteration of BigHand Mobile and claims to offer the most comprehensive and flexible suite of smartphone features when compared to competing solutions currently available on the market.

To summarise briefly, the latest version includes live status updates, extended and comprehensive Windows Mobile Support and automated language selection. At face value during review, the additions appear to improve an already highly efficient and functional solution.

Whilse it is almost impossible for someone working outside of the legal community to fully comprehend how powerful digital dictation can be on a day to day basis, one can only imagine that, if it appears this easy to use to an outsider, the benefits to a worker within this environment must outweigh the costs involved several times over.