Build rich phone applications

Most IT shops primarily use voice-recognition systems to cut costs, primarily as technology that can reduce or avoid headcount, ideally suited for such things as first-level Help Desk support. The folks at SpeechCycle Inc. in New York argue that most IT shops are wrong.

CEO Zor Gorelav says, "The next wave of speech recognition is not human replacement, but it will be used to tap into the enterprise." By that he means you need to see voice-recognition technology, which he claims is "commoditized," like you would a keyboard or a mouse, just another way to find data buried in backend systems. He says cell phones are increasingly becoming device of choice for mobile professionals and should be exploited fully to access corporate data.

Alan Pan, SpeechCycle's senior vice president of product marketing, says by using tools, such as the online service from  his company, IT can create "rich phone applications" that leverage asynchronous threads that can connect to, say, CRM and ERP applications to deliver requested data to mobile users. He says the intellectual hurdle for IT managers to jump is to begin thinking about a phone combined with voice recognition as a "transactional medium" that accesses enterprise services. And, he adds, stop thinking about speech recognition as just another path to lower labor costs.