How to compare two speech recognition softwares? I am working on building speech recognition software for my company.  

In the meantime however, we will purchase some off-the-shelf commercial speech recognizers until the in-house one is ready. My question:
1. How are speech recognizers evaluated?
2. Are there any standardized tests available that can be used to test speech recognizers and determine the better one of the two?
NIST has a web page that provides a good detailed discussion of how to score ASR software.  

http://www.isip.piconepress.com/projects/speech/software/tutorials/production/fundamentals/v1.0/section_04/s04_03_p01.html