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Read moreDigital dictation developer nFlow software stated today that it was committed to delivering open standards within its products. The comment follows growing concern within the market place over attempts by other developers to establish data storage standards for the technology in which they own the intellectual property. In particular nFlow said that it would continue to use audio formats that were within the public domain or part of the standard Microsoft Windows install and wherever possible would extend the use of XML standards within the system for data exchange.
Commenting on why nFlow have made this commitment, nFlow's Chairman Jim Park said,
'Law firms should think seriously about any vendor claiming that their technology is the market standard and ask themselves if they want their intellectual property locked up in a format that is proprietary to the supplier. If they accept this they are effectively locking themselves to one supplier and putting themselves at the suppliers mercy, something that seems totally at odds to a market that is saying it wants more openness from its suppliers. We feel it is time stand up and be counted. That is why we have made this commitment today'.
Rob Lancashire, nFlow's Sales & Marketing director added,
'We wholeheartedly suggest that firms should consider the openness of a system before signing the deal as it may affect future opportunities that a system offers. Indeed, we have already had a number of outsourcing companies saying to us that the proprietary audio format of one main stream developer has effectively meant they can not accept dictations from the system, even to the extent that converting to the existing standard wav format results in dictations that are not clear enough to transcribe.'
nFlow also went on to say that firms should not be taken in by claims about existing standards being old as this simply smoke and mirrors. They added,
'As with all things in IT the existing standards are continually being developed to improve the technology whilst still maintaining the interoperability they were put there in the first place to serve. In fact often the so-called new technologies are nothing more than old technology in new clothes.'
