Executive Suite: Industry Veteran John Shagoury Joins Dragon Systems as New Chief Operating Officer

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, June 15, 1998

John Shagoury, former President of North America for Corporate Software & Technology, Inc. (CS&T), joins worldwide speech recognition leader Dragon Systems in the new position of Chief Operating Officer, Dragon Systems, Inc. of Newton, Mass. announced Monday. In his new role, Shagoury will assume responsibility for development, sales and marketing functions worldwide. He will report to Dr. Janet Baker, president, and Dr. James Baker, CEO.

"John's 18 years of high tech industry experience adds tremendous depth to our management team. His expertise in channels and distribution strategies will be of tremendous value as we expand further in retail and VAR markets," said Dr. Janet Baker. "Dragon Systems is already ranked as the ninth largest publisher of business software in the U.S."

"I am very excited by the opportunities for the growth of Dragon Systems and the potential of the speech recognition market," said Shagoury. "I believe that speech recognition will ultimately have more impact in the next century than the Internet."

Reporting to Shagoury will be Roger Matus, Vice President of North American Marketing, Steve Semenzato, Director of North American Sales, Sean True, Director of Development, and Andreas Widmer, Director of International Sales and Marketing.

At CS&T, Shagoury had profit-and-loss responsibility for their North American business including sales, marketing, operations, independent software vendor relations, and technology services. Shagoury lead the effort into software licensing programs and developed solid executive industry relationships in the distribution channel and with major software publishers.

He joined CS&T in 1989 as Vice President of Product Marketing and held various positions within the organization including Vice President of Supplier Relations, Vice President of Operations and Vendor Management, Senior Vice President of Resale Operations, and Executive Vice President of North American Sales and Marketing.

Prior to joining CS&T, Shagoury served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at ON Technology, where he launched three products called ON Location, Meeting Maker and Instant Update. He also opened up distribution in both Australia and Europe.

Shagoury spent 5 and a half years as Director of Sales Support and Distribution Channels for Lotus Development Corporation. While at Lotus, he developed and drove Lotus' distribution channel strategy from its inception and held various other sales management positions. He co-founded Software Wholesales, Inc., a software distribution business, in 1982 and holds a bachelors and masters degree from Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

Dragon Systems, Inc., the Natural Speech Company, is a worldwide leader in PC speech recognition. Dragon develops and markets high-performance, cost-effective speech and language technology tools that, in multiple world languages (including American English, British English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish) enable users to create any text, issue commands and enter and access data simply by speaking. The company also licenses its technology worldwide through developers, distributors, resellers, OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and ISVs (Integrated Software Vendors). Dragon Systems ports its technology across multiple operating systems and hardware platforms from hand-held devices and personal computers to workstations, and is pursuing leading-edge research and development projects for computer and telecommunications applications.

Founded in 1982, Dragon Systems is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts; its Dragon Systems UK Ltd. subsidiary, which is focused on speech recognition for telephony and high-noise environments is based in Cheltenham, England; Dragon Systems GmbH is located in Munich, Germany. Dragon Systems can be found on the world wide web at: www.dragonsys.com or www.naturalspeech.com.