In 2000, Dictaphone was acquired by the then-leading Belgian voice-recognition and translation company Lernout & Hauspie for nearly $1 billion.
He also joined the board of directors of Lernout & Hauspie where he was part of what is considered one of the largest corporate scandals in history prior to Enron.
Michael and Michelle are also optional male and female voices licensed by Microsoft from Lernout & Hauspie, and available through Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2003 or Microsoft Reader.
In 2001, he was Chief Executive Officer of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Product.