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To: dgurgel who wrote (7483)	12/17/1999 8:40:00 AM
From: Straight Up	Respond to of 10081

The tip of the voice-enabled iceberg Voice recognition can cut costs for small businesses By Patricia Kutza, Office.com Last Update: 4:41 PM ET Dec 16, 1999 Personal Finance News Join the discussion SAN FRANCISCO (Office.com) -- It's been a long and healthy reign for the keys of the communication kingdom. "The biggest opportunities for small- and mid-sized businesses lie in two categories: productivity and customer service tools." William Meisel, TMA Associates Telephone touch-tone pads and computer keyboards have been the prime user interfaces for retrieving, interpreting and performing computerized transactions. Now, their rule is being challenged by a familiar tool -- the human voice. Rapid advances in speech recognition technology are creating the types of conversational interfaces that have distinct advantages over the pads and keyboards. Despite the obvious benefits to users who are manually challenged, these intelligent systems are asking the right questions and manipulating the answers, thus saving time for users and providing better output. Their powerful capabilities are not lost on companies that are increasingly choosing to enhance their Web-based businesses with automated, phone-based speech products. A productivity and customer service tool Help your customers become more productive and improve their service. That's the message that William Meisel thinks small- and mid-sized companies should focus on when they weigh the advantages of the speech-recognition products poised to flood the markets soon. "The biggest opportunities for small and mid-sized businesses lie in two categories: productivity and customer service tools," says Meisel, president of Calif.-based TMA Associates, a speech industry consulting firm. Productivity tools, he explains, include "personal assistant" products that help manage telephone activities and calendars and often provide stock quotes and news. These all use land-based or wireless phones. General Magic (GMGC: news, msgs) and Webley are two service vendors that are working with telephone service providers to bundle these services with wireless plans. Philips Speech Processing, a division of the Dutch electronics firm Philips (PHG: news, msgs), is supplying mobile communications provider Omnitel with a speech recognition engine which allows Omnitel's wireless customers to access information -- scores, stock quotes, horoscopes -- from the Internet by speaking their requests into their wireless phones. Cost saving e-operators Voice-activated auto attendants, says Meisel, will increase productivity and improve customer service within call centers. Callers are connected to a department or person by saying the name of the party they wish to speak to. This part of the speech market is getting lots of attention from such companies as Locus Dialogue, Registry Magic (RMAG: news, msgs), IBM (IBM: news, msgs) and Phonetic Systems. Using speech-aided tools can also mean cost savings to companies. "Customer service can be improved by automating features that otherwise would require agents in a call center," says Meisel. "By dramatically reducing the cost of such services, this capability makes it easier for smaller companies to automate certain operations and even sell automatically, increasing the payoff from advertising." Companies supplying products in this area include Nuance Communications and SpeechWorks. Surf the Web over the phone The growing array of speech-inspired technologies suggests that we are just starting to unveil the tip of this voice-enabled iceberg. IBM Speech Systems has recently announced the development of a VoiceXML-browser, which enables end users to surf the Internet and purchase items from the Web via their telephone. San Jose-based InternetSpeech is developing NetEcho, which enables users to check their e-mail, hear information on any Web site, and search or perform e-commerce transactions, simply by using the telephone. While industry analysts point out that many speech recognition products still contain some wrinkles -- such as requiring unnatural pauses between words and sometimes accommodating only a limited vocabulary -- the future for this type of lip service, by all accounts, sounds promising.

To: dgurgel who wrote (7483)	12/17/1999 1:02:00 PM
From: dgurgel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10081

These things trouble me: (1)"Free Voicemail" (myTalk) is not posted on the Excite portal first page today. It must have come down within the last day or two since I have been watching this quite closely. It still is there in an obscure place on a second page. I believe if it were a smash hit, it would still be there. (2) General Magic's front door (its website) continues to be neglected. Three of nine executives shown under the VIP profiles are no longer there. Positions available have not been updated since 11/11. (It's a very simple matter to update these items.) (3) I have been a Portico account holder for two months. I can not recall receiving a single promotional item from GMGC after the introductory materials. (4) The users' bulletin board at Portico.net has had ONE POSTING IN THE LAST ELEVEN DAYS. I was hoping to see some Bell South people.