Cisco Unity to Use Nuance Speech-Enabled Unified Messaging Solution

By Niladri Sekhar Nath

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

 

 

Nuance (News - Alert) Communications, Inc., a provider of speech and imaging solutions, is all set to offer its speech solutions to Cisco Unity 5.0 as an optional component to speech-enable the unified messaging experience of Cisco (News - Alert) Unity customers.

 

Cisco Unity helps users manage email, voice or fax messages from any medium. With Nuance, Cisco Unity users will have a “hands-free” user interface that uses voice commands to control features of the platform.

 

“As we advance toward our goal of delivering more effective, highly secure and personal communications that allow businesses to collaborate in real time, we believe that incorporating speech solutions as an optional component of the Cisco Unity 5.0 provides us with a competitive edge in the marketplace,” said Rick McConnell, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s unified communications business unit in a statement. “By utilizing Nuance’s speech solutions, we’re enabling our users to access messages with familiar voice commands, simplifying the user interface for more effective communications.”

 

Michael Thompson, vice president and general manager, mobile search and communications, Nuance also commented,  “A primary benefit of Cisco Unity is that users don’t need to learn a complicated interface for accessing messages. The introduction of a speech-based user interface now makes it even easier for users to access the advanced functionality of Unity’s key features.”

 

The latest collaboration takes the relationship between Cisco and Nuance one step further. Both the companies also came together to deliver and support high-quality, speech-enabled applications based on Nuance's speech technology to fulfill the needs of call centers and improve customer experiences with self-service solutions.