October 1999

• Listen Up!  Unified Messaging Goes Online
• Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do
• Migrating To Multiservice Networks

Listen Up!  Unified Messaging Goes Online

In the last year, the market for unified messaging (UM) products has started to take off, and with good reason. It’s like a messaging superstore — one-stop shopping for all of your needs. Voice mail, e-mail, and fax messages can all be waiting for you in one integrated in-box. Perhaps inspired by the success of free online e-mail services like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, Web-based unified messaging is emerging as a promising segment of the UM market.

Onebox.com  is among the latest group of Web-based UM service providers. Users who sign up for the beta release get free unlimited phone and Web access to the service. Registered users receive a personal phone number (currently local only to select areas in California, Texas, New York, and New Jersey, but with additional area codes to be added) and an e-mail address. Users can receive voice mail and faxes via their e-mail account and can be notified via their onebox.com e-mail address, through their existing e-mail account, over the phone, or via ICQ when new messages arrive. When someone calls a onebox.com user number, the service detects whether it is a voice or data connection. Callers are greeted with a generic message, while faxes are automatically received. Users can also reply to e-mail in their own voice directly through a multimedia PC.

Another player in this field is TelePost, whose Message Center Lite is a free version of its full-featured Message Center business-class solution. Like onebox.com, Message Center Lite offers a central location for users to receive voice, fax, and e-mail messages. One difference, however, is that Message Center Lite is currently available from selected business partners including Hello Direct, Office Depot, and Compaq. Message Center Lite has expanded the availability of local telephone numbers to 21 U.S. metro areas, so there is likely to be a number relatively local to users. Using their Web browser, Message Center Lite customers can read and reply to e-mail, listen to voice mail using the Real Audio plug-in, view faxes online, and forward or reply to faxes via e-mail.

GetMessage.com is also chiming in, offering a suite of free communications services that features e-mail and voice mail capabilities, POP mail access, faxes received online and offline, and an automated telephone messaging interface.

GetMessage.com plans to expand its offerings to include pager notification when messages arrive, chat capabilities, individual and group calendars, and text-to-speech capabilities so users can listen to their e-mail messages over the telephone, making it a truly full-featured option.

GetMessage.com also allows users to record a personal greeting for their voice mail, rather than just a standard name announcement.

All of these services make it easy for on-the-go professionals to access their messages, especially since remote mail can be retrieved and primary phone numbers can be forwarded to unified messaging service numbers. Will these services take off like free, Web-based e-mail? It is important to note that although these UM services are touted as “free,” most users will incur long-distance charges when accessing their accounts via the telephone. People might not view these charges as convenient. That fact aside, similar Web-based services like Jfax, RocketMail, and General Magic’s magicTalk are showing up all over the Internet. You might never have to miss a message again.

— Carol Drzewianowski, CTI Magazine

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Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do

Speech recognition technology isn’t a new concept — it’s been a science fiction staple for decades. After all, verbal communication between humans and computers is a natural extension of a vision of computers as intelligent helpmates, as well as tools. But those speaking computers were often hostile or, at best, limited. Whether it was the dogged malevolence of HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the limited utility of the computer on Star Trek’s original USS Enterprise, natural language abilities — and the resultant illusion of sentience — in those fictional computers seemed only to highlight their limitations. For example, why limit the Enterprise crew to accessing the computer and related devices only when those crewmembers were physically on the bridge? Surely it would have been more useful to be able to activate the transporter remotely using their communicators rather than hoping that Scotty was within communicator range, not debilitated by spores or space hippies, and able to beam them away from danger!

Until recently, real-life speech-enabled products seemed as limited as those fictional predecessors. Most automated speech recognition (ASR) solutions were basic text-to-speech (TTS) applications that required training to recognize users’ speech patterns and mannerisms, or crude speech-recognition tools with limited functionality and accessibility.

That’s about to change. Speech-enabled solutions have become more powerful, flexible, and useful, as evidenced by recent releases that leverage advances in ASR technology. Among these new products are a call center solution that combines a speech-enabled auto attendant, ACD, and automated-transaction manager; a speech-enabled unified messaging solution; and a hands-free Web browser that allows users to say what they see on the screen in order to activate links, URLs, and other Web functions.

SpeechWorks International’s SpeechSite brings the Web model of self-service to the telephone, packaging auto attendant, information retrieval, and commerce capabilities into a single speech-activated system. The rationale is simple: telephones are even more ubiquitous than computers, and by allowing customers to access information and services anytime, from any phone, companies increase their CRM and commerce capabilities. With SpeechSite, customers can contact company employees by saying their names, access corporate information by asking for it, and conduct automated transactions (buying stocks, sending packages, and so on) over the phone.

The Fed Ex example available at SpeechWork’s own SpeechSite is a good demonstration of the solution: customers are guided by a personable auto attendant through a number of options, including requesting information about the company or sending a package. Users say the size of the package and the zip codes of the shipping location and the destination. After each spoken choice (or if a choice is unclear), the system asks for confirmation of the entry. If the system cannot understand a spoken response after three tries, it prompts the user to respond using the touch-tone buttons, like a conventional IVR system. At any time during the transaction, the user can interrupt, asking for the Help menu or to speak with an operator, or instructing SpeechSite to “back up” to the previous menu or to skip ahead by saying “next item.” SpeechSite can also respond to specific commands, such as “fax it” for fax-on-demand or “find it” to instruct the system to search for a keyword or phrase.

SpeechSite simplifies speech application development. The product platform includes customizable, pre-packaged applications that enable companies to set up and expand their own SpeechSites. The SpeechSite product is based on the SpeechWorks 5.0 product line, which includes the SMART recognition engine, building blocks known as DialogModules, and other development tools. SpeechSite’s provisioning tools and wizards allow users to set up a SpeechSite that leverages existing Web-based infrastructure and data, allowing common information to be shared between the SpeechSite and the corporate Web site and allowing SpeechSite-specific data and audio recordings to be easily added.

In the SpeechSite architecture, a speech server—a telephony platform with SpeechWorks’ speech recognition capabilities—will typically run alongside a Web server, both of which interact with corporate databases. SpeechSite can obtain data from the corporate databases or can be served via XML from the Web server.

SpeechWorks isn’t alone in its mission to offer a range of speech applications; both Telekol and Conversa also offer speech-enabled solutions. Telekol recently announced the introduction of the IntegraSpeech optional software module, which enhances the user interface to Telekol’s intelligent call processing systems. The software adds ASR capability to Telekol’s unified messaging and intelligent call processing applications, enabling users to manage messages using voice commands. Telekol also offers IntegraVM, a speech-enabled auto attendant/ACD solution.

Conversa also offers solutions designed to allow people to use natural language as the user interface with CTI applications and devices. Conversa Messenger, a desktop messaging system for SOHOs, allows users to access and manage e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages from a desktop or remotely through a cell or landline phone using voice commands. There is no training necessary, as with some ASR systems — Conversa’s proprietary speech engine works out of the box.

Conversa also offers a Web browser that utilizes ASR to offer hands-free access to information and services on the Internet. Content providers can use Conversa Web to create interactive “conversationalized” Web pages that literally ask questions, respond to queries, and even make suggestions. Web surfers can use Conversa Web to speak (rather than click on) the on-screen links, images, and URLs, as well as Conversa Web’s unique voice-enabled icons (called “Saycons”), which control dropdown boxes, menus, radio buttons, and check boxes. Users can also search the Web with voice commands, verbally enter URLs and fill in text fields, and verbally activate online help.

Other features include URL AutoComplete for previously entered URLs; a voice-activated history list; and a TTS feature called “Read Me The Links,” which vocalizes links on each Web page so that users don’t have to be looking at the screen. Conversa Web also recognizes common commands such as refresh, scroll, zoom, print, page forward and back, and search. Conversa Web won’t beam you away from a host of marauding aliens, true, but it will free you from being chained to the computer while you navigate the Web.

— Grace Pisano, CTI Magazine

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Migrating To Multiservice Networks

Businesses are careful when considering their network; after all, it could be their most important investment. Lately, enterprises and services providers have begun the migration from data networks to multiservice networks, enticed by the cost savings offered by video and voice over IP. Cisco Systems wants to make sure your business is ready to make this move. They have taken on a leading role with their integrated products, which are designed to enable customers to migrate their data networks to a single data, voice, and video network.

This summer, Cisco introduced several new products to assist businesses that want to gracefully migrate to converged voice and data network solutions. These new features of Cisco’s 7200, 3600, and 2600 series represent Cisco’s continued delivery of comprehensive solutions that help to facilitate a cost-effective transition from existing data networks to integrated, multiservice networks.

Helping to smooth over what could be a rocky path are the multiservice gateway and gatekeeper capabilities on Cisco’s 7200 series routers, which include a high-capacity digital voice port adapter and an H.323 gatekeeper. These provide a scalable multiservice solution for enterprise central sites, and create a smooth migration from legacy telephony to integrated data, voice, and video networking.

Meanwhile, Cisco’s 3660 multiservice platform extends the 3600 series, providing higher density, greater performance, and more expansion capability to enable multiservice integration. These characteristics make it a sensible choice for applications combining data, video, analog voice, and digital voice. Furthermore, it features hot swappable network modules and integrates an optional redundant power supply designed to accommodate field serviceability and high availability.

To help customers transition and scale to multiservice networks, the Digital T1/E1 Packet Voice Trunk Network Module for the 2600 and 3600 series provides a high-density digital voice solution that enables new applications and reduces recurring phone charges. When used in combination with the Cisco 3660, the Digital T1/E1 Packet Voice Trunk Network Module allows 288 simultaneous voice trunks.

Customers who have already invested in Cisco’s multiservice platforms can add voice support by adding a module or an adapter, rather than replacing equipment entirely, thus providing cost savings for businesses. The new 3660 platform also protects customer investment with six slots that allow expansion room for future migration.

With the addition of these types of products, customers can deploy packet telephony today and benefit from reduced costs, improved network efficiency, and the ability to introduce new integrated data, voice, and video business applications. For detailed pricing information on these products, visit Cisco’s Web site at www.cisco.com.
— Carol Drzewianowski, CTI Magazine

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