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About Crown International Distributing

Established in 1980, Crown International Distributing is a Value Added Retailer specializing in speech dictation and automation technology. We have dedicated ourselves to helping business and practicing professionals such as lawyers and doctors, law enforcement and security personnel, governmental organizations, and persons with disabilities become more efficient and timely in all aspects of their computing life through the use of cutting edge software and hardware. We have an extensive clientele list that ranges not only the full breadth of the United States but also around the world and we stand ready to assist you in making the most of your time and computing power in the office, on the road, and at home.

A Family Business

Crown International remains at its heart a small, family owned business and that is exactly how it started out. James Cox, Owner and CEO of Crown decided to shift careers, exiting a successful run as a professional photographer working in the commercial and political world and jumping full force into the emerging market of personal computing. His ambition was to build a new business based on the then new phenomenon of personal computing and work hard to provide practical business that harnessed the power and capability of the PC in ways that would benefit his customers.

In the early days Crown found itself focused on database and custom software solutions for churches and religious organizations as well as providing small businesses new to PCs appropriate consulting and solution packages that met their growing needs.

Enter the Internet

In 1997 Crown entered the online scene by launching its first website, the website you are now visiting which is now on its third revision in eight years. At the time we were focused on custom database and management solutions for small to medium sized law enforcement agencies. Our Police Records Management system filled a well known gap in department management and record keeping and it was sold widely through out the Midwest an in other parts of the United States. This custom database solution, working on small networks and with multiple departmental management capabilities was very successful and even today several notable police and sheriff's departments still use PRM.

Shifting to Speech Dictation

After working locally in the cellular phone market and gaining experience with the telecom and voice technology needs of a wide range of business professionals Crown shifted its business focus to newly emerging speech dictation and automation technologies. Teaming up with IBM, Crown became one of the first successful VARs to receive certifications on IBM’s award winning speech recognition software programs then dubbed Simply Speaking.

Leveraging our industry leading position Crown built up a network of solution providers, dealers, trainers, and implementers and worked closely with IBM as they developed successive ViaVoice products. In fact, Crown became the host of several annual Speech Dictation software conferences held regularly in Florida at the request of IBM for its dealer network.

With a clear demand for better understanding and training on ViaVoice present, James Cox embarked on creating the most comprehensive training and user guide for ViaVoice speech recognition software available and offered it to the market in the then innovative form of an e-book. This book has been bundled with ViaVoice and used as a reference by numerous practicing professionals and individuals around the world, assisting ViaVoice users.  "How To Master IBM ViaVoice"  is constantly being updated and is now in it's 4th revision with another due to come out shortly.

Crown also works closely with several other companies involved in the speech dictation market space, providing input on product development for things like speech vocabularies as well as being prime distributor and implementer of third party add-ons speech dictation software. In 2003 Crown recognized the full maturation of ScanSoft’s Dragon Naturally Speaking line of voice dictation and automation products and became Certified Partner and Solutions Provider for their line as well, expanding Crown's ability to create customized and specialized solutions for it's customers.

How Can Crown Help You?

Crown is strongly focused on voice dictation technologies, both hardware and software. We are capable of working with just about any industry sector and government or security sector. Our many years of expertise in this area is virtually unmatched and we can provide consultation, customization, timely product delivery and deployment, training, and long term support options that will meet your specific needs.
With decades of experience and training Crown International Distributing can do the following for you:

• In person or over the phone consultations
• Needs based analysis of your business, practice, or home requirements for voice automation and dictation
• Software demonstrations
• Case studies to help you decide what solution is best for you
• Create timely and cost effective bids that are very competitive and which provide a customized solution of software and hardware that will meet your needs
• We can create and deploy customized and voice enabled forms, macros, and vocabularies unique to your area or specialty
• Crown offers a full line of hardware, software, and software add-ons like industry or practice specific vocabularies
• Provide on-site training, ranging from train the trainer and group training sessions to one on one personal training, as well as a wide range of electronic alternatives including topical e-books, videos, and remote learning sessions
• Give you top notch support with a variety of options that are best suited to your business, practice, or personal needs. We offer term based support and maintenance contracts, phone support options, electronic and online support facilities, and a comprehensive yet easy to follow e-book written in house by Crown's founder Jim Cox called "How To Master IBM ViaVoice" which can serve as a quick reference as well as a complete training tool.

Meet the CEO

James P. Cox is the CEO, founder, and owner of Crown International Distributing. Jim is a Vietnam veteran, United States Airforce, and Crown International is his second full career. He is married to Francoise, his wife of 36 years, and has three children. Jim calls Central Illinois home but he was born in Indiana and he has traveled the US and the world rather extensively over the years. Jim is a member of the Knights of Columbus and is also a Kentucky Colonel and he has done volunteer work for such organizations as Habitat for Humanity.

His first career, ranging in date back to his late teens, was photography. Over the years James moved up through the industry, first working for local and regional newspapers as well as national groups like AP. At the pinnacle of his photography career he was a highly regarded commercial, political, and personal photographer who worked with some of the biggest companies in the US on their product advertising campaigns as well as with political candidates on their campaigns.

Today Jim is considered a honest and solid business man as well as a leading expert on ViaVoice software.  His business caters to a long list of doctors, lawyers, law enforcement agencies, schools, governmental organizations, and individuals. He is also an accomplished author; His e-book, "How To Master IBM ViaVoice" is the single best resource available for individuals and businesses using that speech dictation and automation product and it is now in it’s 4th revision with a new version pending any day now.

Questions about Crown?

Do you want to know more or do you have a question for us? Feel free to contact us or use our online question form to submit your question directly to Crown.