TToday, dictation equipment survives in a few (but important) niche markets, notably medical dictation. Of the firms that dominated the U.S. market in the 1950s, Edison’s Voicewriter division, Dictaphone, Gray, Soundscriber, and Peirce, only Dictaphone remains. Dictaphone was acquired by Pitney Bowes in 1979, but spun off a few years ago. A local distributor of dictation equipment in Atlanta, Lanier, bought Edison, Gray, and Soundscriber (and another, Nye) in the early ’70s. However, these product lines were reduced to just one, the Edisette, and by the 1990s it too was gone. The desktop dictation machine has virtually disappeared. Those few who still prefer dictation (or are required to use it) usually use digital centralized systems, sometimes in conjunction with voice recognition software. There are still modern day versions of transcription pools, but very often these are located far from the dictators, linked to them by computers and telephone lines–this has become quite common in the medical profession.

Individuals sometimes use PC-based voice recognition software, but this is rarely used to dictate letters. Battery operated, analog portable microcassette recorders still sell in fairly large numbers, but they are no longer part of integrated office dictation systems. Most mangers and others who might have been light users of dictation equipment in past years now seem to be producing their own correspondence on the personal computer. When the PC began to catch on in offices in the 1980s, the need for both dictation equipment and its competitor, the stenographer, declined quickly. Today, they are both rarities in the office.

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