Leading Companies Converge to Deliver Best of Breed Voice Portal Solutions.Business Editors PARSIPPANY, NJ--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 2000 Dialogic di·a·log·ic also di·a·log·i·cal adj. Of, relating to, or written in dialogue. di  a·log , HeyAnita, SpeechWorks International, and Telera DeliverNext-Generation Communications Infrastructure With predictions that 18 million consumers will use some kind of speech-recognition portal by 2005 to access the Web, (Source: The Kelsey group, Princeton, NJ), leading technology companies are working to bolster a next-generation infrastructure to support that demand. These companies are making speech-enabled voice portals, a powerful new way to conduct e-commerce and the next evolutionary step in the convergence of telecommunications and the Internet. True Communications Convergence Intel's Dialogic subsidiary and building block supplier to the Internet economy The Internet Economy refers to conducting business through markets whose infrastructure is based on the Internet and World-Wide Web. An Internet economy differs from a traditional economy in a number of ways, including: communication, market segmentation, distribution costs, and price. , this week introduced a brand new voice portal platform that allows companies to bring new voice portal applications to market at Internet speed. Telera, the first business communications application service provider (ASP) driving the convergence of the Internet and telecommunications, provides the backbone and voice communications infrastructure. SpeechWorks International, (Nasdaq: SPWX SPWX Speechworks (stock symbol) ), the market leader in the telephony-based speech technology industry(a), provides advanced speech interface software. And HeyAnita, a voice portal and application service provider (ASP), uses this infrastructure to provide users with services that allow anywhere, anytime access to Web-based information. The Voice Portal Boom Voice portals put many kinds of web-based information at a consumer's fingertips "Fingertips" is a 1963 number-one hit single recorded live by "Little" Stevie Wonder for Motown's Tamla label. Wonder's first hit single, "Fingertips" was the first live, non-studio recording to reach number-one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the United States. -- anytime, from anywhere. Customers dialing into the voice portal's 800 number are quickly guided to the information they need. The customer only needs to answer with simple voice responses -- without the need to type in menu selections. This makes voice portals easy to use, even from a car. The process is no different from browsing the Web on a PC, and anyone can do it from any office, cellular, or home phone. Made possible by advances in speech technology, voice portals are changing telephone interaction from a vendor-centric experience to a customer-centric experience -- increasing satisfaction for customers while they improve efficiency and cut costs for businesses. Over the next few years, voice portals are poised to profoundly change the way people use their telephones and the way businesses view their callers. In today's vendor-centric model, the caller can only leave an organization's interactive voice response (IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. ) system by hanging up. In tomorrow's customer-centric model, the caller will be able to interact with a voice portal, free to jump from one enterprise to another as quickly and easily as surfing the Web. The Kelsey Group, a leading e-commerce, voice and Web technology analyst firm, expects that 18 million consumers will use some kind of speech-recognition portal by 2005. With Internet-based e-commerce sales growing every year, emerging companies are seeing many benefits of extending their corporate information and e-commerce transactions to anyone, at any time, with any telephone. HeyAnita: Engaging the World Through Voice HeyAnita is a voice technology company that builds applications employing SpeechWorks' voice recognition software. The company works closely with businesses to architect, develop and host voice applications that meet their strategic needs. The company's in-house production team, linguists A linguist in the academic sense is a person who studies linguistics. Ambiguously, the word is sometimes also used to refer to a polyglot (one who knows more than 2 languages), or a grammarian, but these two uses of the word are distinct. , and infrastructure help companies quickly deploy voice solutions. HeyAnita's powerful voice portal allows consumers globally to use natural speech to navigate the Internet from any type of voice-enabled device. Consumers can easily access Internet information like news headlines, sports, weather, and stock quotes. In addition, HeyAnita offers a Message Center in which consumers can have their email, calendar and to-do lists read to them over the phone. To access all this information, consumers simply make a free call to 1-800-44-ANITA (442-6482) using any telephone. "HeyAnita chose Dialogic to provide voice and speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of these signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation whereby speech processing can be seen as the intersection of digital signal processing and natural language processing. technologies for its voice portal," explained Adesh Desai, CTO (Chief Technical Officer) The executive responsible for the technical direction of an organization. See CIO and salary survey. of HeyAnita. "Dialogic helps enable the HeyAnita speech recognition system, powered by the SpeechWorks speech interface, to answer incoming calls. Telera's Intelligent Communications Network The transmission channels interconnecting all client and server stations as well as all supporting hardware and software. (ICN ICN International Council of Nurses. ) provides the backbone for HeyAnita's voice portal services and the delivery of Web-powered telephony applications." Continuous Speech Processing Dialogic offered HeyAnita all the elements to build its voice portal, including: - Continuous speech processing (CSP) for on-board speech recognition technology, eliminating the need for additional speech hardware - Fully integrated application-ready platforms - Development tools - Service and support - A partner network ready to deliver easy-to-implement solutions - Training and consulting services for a faster time to market Voice portals built with Dialogic CSP (1) (Certified Systems Professional) An earlier award for successful completion of an ICCP examination in systems development. See ICCP. (2) (Commerce Service P boards scale to thousands of speech-enabled ports and still deliver high-quality speech recognition. Developers can use less hardware space and save on infrastructure and deployment costs. CSP optimizes the performance of host-based speech resources by streaming preprocessed voice data between the telephony boards (analog, T-1, E-1) and the host computer's central processing unit See CPU. (architecture, processor) central processing unit - (CPU, processor) The part of a computer which controls all the other parts. Designs vary widely but the CPU generally consists of the control unit, the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), registers, temporary buffers (CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. ). CSP also enhances existing speech technologies with additional algorithms that enable the creation of large-scale systems that include thousands of lines of speech recognition. Dialogic CSP offers callers the ability to interrupt speech prompts by talking over them, a feature called barge-in. The voice portal company saves resources and system use, and reduces toll-free phone charges on free services (O.Eng. Law) such feudal services as were not unbecoming the character of a soldier or a freemen to perform; as, to serve under his lord in war, to pay a sum of money, etc. See also: Free . CSP technology also features a voice activity detector and a pre-speech buffer that provides more accurate voice recognition and higher densities. Voice portal platforms can easily scale to nearly two thousand ports in a single rack, saving on costly floor space in a Service Provider point-of-presence. Since companies can rely on a stable, high performance platform, the Dialogic solution lets them focus on differentiating their voice portal offerings and growing their services. The Interface: SpeechWorks Speech is the most natural interface for users of any communications system In telecommunication, a communications system is a collection of individual communications networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations, and data terminal equipment (DTE) usually capable of interconnection and interoperation to form an integrated whole. . HeyAnita's technology team chose SpeechWorks because of the company's impressive track record of designing and deploying speech systems that consumers enjoy using. "SpeechWorks' expertise and fast-to-market approach will help HeyAnita communicate with consumers through an easy-to-use interface that understands natural voice commands," said Steve Chambers, vice president of worldwide marketing. "HeyAnita's patented technology will let users easily choose among multiple content offerings and applications." SpeechWorks customers include some of the world's most sophisticated customer service innovators such as Amtrak Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., authorized to operate virtually all intercity passenger railroad routes in the United States. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 in response to more than two decades of continuous operating deficits by privately run , Continental Airlines, E*TRADE, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, MapQuest.com, NextLink and United Airlines. The company offers the SpeechWorks Here(TM) Guarantee, the industry's only program that includes a money-back guarantee. The Backbone: Telera ICN The Telera ICN brings together IP and traditional voice in a single infrastructure that combines the openness and flexibility of the Internet with the reliability of the public switched telephone network (PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) The worldwide voice telephone network. Once only an analog system, the heart of most telephone networks today is all digital. In the U.S. ). Voice communications functions, embedded in the Telera ICN, are dynamically controlled by HeyAnita through Voice XML XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML's limitations. technology. Using standard Internet technologies allows HeyAnita to extend Web information to phone-based users without the extensive deployment of costly customer premise equipment like interactive voice response systems and automatic call distributors. HeyAnita can deliver voice portal applications independent of platform, programming language and environment -- empowering them to accelerate service development and implementation. "Telera's managed platform provides HeyAnita with a feature rich, cost-effective solution for call distribution and control," explained Prem Uppaluru, Telera president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. . "More importantly, the Web-driven architecture adapts easily to changing needs and provides HeyAnita with a clean migration path to the future use of voice over IP." About Dialogic Dialogic, an Intel Company, provides the crucial building blocks and technical services that enable its customers to develop solutions serving the converging Internet and telecommunications market segments. Dialogic products are used in voice, fax, data, speech recognition and synthesis, call center management, and Internet protocol See Internet and TCP/IP. (networking) Internet Protocol - (IP) The network layer for the TCP/IP protocol suite widely used on Ethernet networks, defined in STD 5, RFC 791. IP is a connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol. (IP) telephony applications in both public network and customer premise equipment (CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) Communications equipment that resides on the customer's premises. CPE - Customer Premises Equipment ) environments. For more information visit www.dialogic.com. Dialogic and the Dialogic logo are registered trademarks of Dialogic Corporation. All other names products, and services mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective organizations. (a) Based on the Frost and Sullivan's report "U.S. Telephony-based Speech Technology Software Market 2000." |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion