Interactive Commerce
February 2001
Daniel Callahan

 

Voices In My Head

BY DANIEL CALLAHAN
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There are so many new ways to communicate with each other, we often overlook one of the oldest and most common: our voice. It has been our most prevalent source of communication since, well, sound itself. Now this age-old "solution" is making a comeback through e-commerce. One obvious way is through the Web.

Despite its popularity, the majority of Americans still don't have access to a PC. However, phones are just about everywhere. Until recently, many Fortune 1,000 companies had hosted separate Web sites and call centers. Now, they can no longer afford parallel developments of Internet data and voice-accessible data. Forward-thinking ASPs and pioneering e-commerce sites will soon merge the call center and the Web into one unified platform, turning any phone into a portal.

Customers have long been comfortable with ordering by phone, and voice will extend the reach of an Internet site to a huge untapped pool of users. Web sites need to leverage every means possible in getting their messages across, and voice-based access will be a major next step. It adds another communication touch point and humanizes the online experience, delivering high quality service at the point of purchase. Voice-enabled banner ads have great potential for personally connecting with advertisers, and businesses can more accurately measure the effectiveness of the ad.

Service providers are also benefiting by voice, combining it with the affordability and accessibility of the Web. Subscribers are demanding more quality of service, and this is a strong incentive for enhancements. Providing more services and add-ons allows cable operators to transition their customers from a single service to multiple. Providing telephone-based e-commerce (and taking a percentage of all transactions) seems by far the most focused and workable niche in the marketplace.

The recent adoption of voice services by major telecommunication companies shows a huge demand for these services throughout the telecom market, and developers are actively searching for economically viable ways to create and deploy voice applications. Many ASPs are looking for solutions, and collaboration seems to be the way to go.

Perhaps the biggest benefit will be for mobile users. The phone is the salesperson's best friend. New voice applications will eliminate the need to impose new technology on mobile professionals and give them easy, natural, and unconstrained access to their data. Enabling communication and collaboration between end users, irrespective of platform, device, or location, is a major value-add for mobile professionals. Issues of profitability and access to the power of speech technology are driving voice dialing to the top of the wireless industry's enhanced services agenda.

What lies ahead? Future trends will focus on standards and VoiceXML development. We've come a long way from two tin cans and a piece of string!

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Interactive Commerce News

ISPhone Unveils VoIP-NOW
ISPhone has unveiled a new solution called VoIP-NOW, designed to let service providers offer VoIP services rapidly and with minimum investment. The service includes a managed IP network service with proprietary network management tools, 24/7 network management and technical support, redundancy of key network equipment and systems, and low-cost termination to 250 countries. Based on ISPhone's managed network, the new service is built specifically to provide voice and fax calling. The company also provides authentication, routing, billing and reporting, settlement, technical support, and.

Verascape Joins Nuance Partner Alliance
Verascape has announced that it has joined the Nuance Partner Alliance (NPA), a strategic alliance of technology companies dedicated to working with Nuance to deliver best-of-breed speech solutions for businesses worldwide. The NPA includes hardware, software, services, and support companies. Verascape will integrate Nuance's speech recognition software into its Verascape speech platform, due to ship this quarter. The Verascape platform will be an all-in-one voice solution capable of hosting multiple, high-capacity voice applications. The Verascape speech platform is marketed to application service providers (ASPs), voice portal developers, and enterprises that need scalable hardware and software to provide their customers with voice access to Web sites and Web-based data. With automatic speech recognition software from Nuance, Verascape will provide a VoiceXML platform that will allow customers to add Nuance voice recognition to virtually any Web site.

Convergent Networks Joins OpenVoB
Convergent Networks has joined OpenVoB, an industry trade group formed to accelerate the deployment of voice over broadband technologies, products, and services. Convergent's Cohesion product suite represents a next-generation broadband switching solution that serves as a value-added alternative to traditional Class 4 or Class 5 circuit switches. OpenVoB was formed to meet the needs of service providers planning to deploy voice over broadband services. It is committed to developing deployment models for voice over broadband, utilizing established and emerging guidelines supported by the world's leading industry standards bodies. The special interest group is not seeking to develop new standards or modify existing ones, nor does it promote the specific technologies, products, or services of any individual company or vendor-specific alliance. Last December, it held an inaugural round of tests focused on enabling interoperability between broadband gateways and integrated access devices from multiple vendors using OpenVoB's implementation model for VoDSL systems based on the ATM Forum's AAL2 Loop Emulation Service specification.

BeVocal Announces Carrier Partnership Program
BeVocal has announced the introduction of its Carrier Partnership Program, providing voice application developers with a direct sales channel to major telecommunications carriers. Developers using the BeVocal Café now have the opportunity to showcase their voice applications to BeVocal's carrier partners, who can then make the applications available to their voice portal subscribers. Qwest Communications has announced that Qwest Wireless was leveraging BeVocal technology to deliver a "talking Internet" service over wireless phones. BeVocal also recently announced an agreement with Sprint to trial enhanced speech-enabled applications with select Sprint PCS customers. The BeVocal Café supports both VoiceXML and SpeechObjects. The VoiceXML interpreter is fully compliant with VoiceXML 1.0 specs and is written entirely in Java.
www.cafe.bevocal.com

Atinav To Launch VoIP For Windows CE
Atinav has announced the beta availability of a VoIP application that runs on the Windows CE operating system. The new application enables users to communicate via voice over a handheld PC. Handheld users need only a headset and wireless network connectivity to utilize the application. The application will be part of Atinav's aveComm software product, a customizable, java-based software technology that enhances the existing functionality of traditional CRM, help desk, collaboration, and distance learning programs. aveComm provides feature-rich communication and collaboration modules, including full-duplex, PC-to-PC voice communication.

ITXC and DoubleClick Voice-Enable Banner Ads
ITXC Corporation has announced that DoubleClick is now offering ITXC Push to Talk Service as an enhancement to DoubleClick's DART for Advertisers solution, a Web-based advertising solution developed specifically for agencies and advertisers. One push of a button initiates a phone call or establishes a PC-to-phone connection via ITXC.net. ITXC.net assures carrier-grade quality with its patent-pending BestValue Routing technology, which routes voice calls around Internet congestion. ITXC Push to Talk Service is a network-based, voice-enabling service that can be applied to all aspects of a company's online initiatives, including Web sites, e-mail marketing, and online advertising. 

Intraco Launches Voice-Powered X-Site Dialer
Intraco Systems has introduced the X-Site Dialer, a personal dialer service that uses Intraco's speech recognition technology to place and route calls anywhere in the world. Sold as an enhanced service by telecommunications carriers, the X-Site Dialer is a remotely hosted dialer service that places calls over both VoIP and standard telephone networks. It provides secure access to a Web-based administration page where each user can enter, organize, and update up to 500 names and 2,500 numbers. Businesses can also create custom directories, and entire address books from contact manager applications such as Outlook, Act, and Goldmine can be imported. The X-Site Dialer is speaker independent, so callers can speak naturally and have their requests understood and processed. It may also be purchased as an add-on module to Intraco's X-Site Operator, a voice-powered call routing auto-attendant service. Both the X-Site Operator and the X-Site Dialer are hosted at Intraco Data Centers. The service is compatible with any phone, including the Cisco IP Phone 7960, the 3Com NBX and SIP phones, Alcatel's IP Reflexes, Lucent's Avaya 4600, Nortel's i2004, and Siemens' optiPoint 300.

3Com Carrier Networks Demo VoIP Over Cable
3Com Corporation's Carrier Networks Business has recently demonstrated technology for delivering VoIP over cable. The technology is based on 3Com Carrier Networks' three-tier CommWorks architecture (CommWorks was recently incorporated as a wholly-owned subsidiary). The end-to-end VoIP over cable solution is based on the Distributed Call Signaling protocol. It provides complete standards-based interfaces, and also uses a flexible SIP proxy platform, allowing service providers to deliver voice, multimedia, data, and signaling across a common Internet backbone. The architecture provides for the seamless interconnection of existing infrastructures such as PSTN, IP networks, and the SS7 network.

PeopleSoft and JustTalk Deliver Speech Rec For CRM
PeopleSoft and JustTalk have announced a strategic partnership that will establish both companies in mobile CRM. They are integrating their technologies to allow field sales personnel to capture, access, and share key data using speech recognition technology over any phone. Plans currently call for the integration of JustTalk's speech recognition technology with PeopleSoft CRM's mobile sales force automation software and the company's PeopleSoft 8 pure Internet Financial, Human Resources, and Supply Chain products. PeopleSoft currently plans to promote the JustTalk service to existing and potential customers, and a portion of PeopleSoft's sales force will be early adopters of the service. JustTalk will be available this month, and has selected IBM as its hosting provider.

Amtelco Announces Infinity 5.1
Amtelco has announced the release of Infinity Version 5.1. Infinity 5.1 has over 75 new features, including 1,000 CTI ports, 300 agents, 96 voice processing ports, customizable status selections with greetings and one number follow-me, the ability to schedule automatic changes to a client's status, and automated on-call scheduling behaviors. Infinity is a contact center solution that provides integrated voice processing with text messaging, skills-based routing to agents with multiple levels of ACD queuing announcements, ePOP, a patented Windows-based agent application with built-in Web browser, Web chat and callback capabilities, and the ability to integrate with an existing PBX or directly to the public network. Also, Infinity's specialized keyboard enables agents to perform most functions with a single keystroke.

!hey Acquires ReallyEasy
!hey, Inc., has announced the acquisition of ReallyEasy Internet, Inc. The merger adds ReallyEasy's VoIP customer collaboration and patent-pending automatic firewall compensation technology to !heycenter, !hey's customer engagement product suite. Through the acquisition, !hey will add ReallyEasy's collaborative online voice, instant voice messaging, IP voice and Web conferencing, and shared surfing capabilities to its customer interaction product suite. !hey will also be able to integrate ReallyEasy's Escort firewall compensation library with !heycenter.

Quicknet Combines With Pagoo
Quicknet Technologies and Pagoo have announced that Pagoo has released a new version of its software which incorporates Quicknet's OpenH323 VoIP stack. This latest software is private-labeled to service providers using Pagoo's VoIP solutions. OpenH323 allows for greater flexibility in the features Pagoo can develop for its Voice Express customers, as well as shorten the development time. Pagoo's new software release improves overall sound quality for the end user through optimal compression of the packetized data. DTMF is also supported, and the new release also includes an html Web page viewer where any standard banner ad can be displayed. Quicknet recently announced the acquisition of the OpenH323 protocol stack, a commercial-quality open-source H.323 protocol stack. The stack has been tested for interoperability with many recognized commercial H.323 protocol stacks and is compatible with such H.323 hardware and software as Cisco, Polycom, Nortel, and Microsoft NetMeeting. 

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Answering The "Call of the Web"

BY MIL OVAN

Proprietary application codes for voice-to-Web integration and proprietary hardware for interface to the telephone network could ultimately paint your company's web site into a corner. For those considering a voice-enabled solution, look to standards backed and endorsed by industry leaders. Among the standards that will serve well are VoiceXML, VoIP, SIP, and Call Processing Language (CPL). Keep your hardware standard as well, building the voice-to-Web bridge on industry-accepted servers, standard operating systems, and common network components.

If you choose an IVR and speech recognition platform that supports VoiceXML, then you've drastically reduced both upfront and long-term production costs. VoiceXML-based applications can utilize much, if not all, of the same data you've already invested in for your e-commerce site. The advantage of VoiceXML is that our experience with HTML vastly accelerates how we can use and enhance it. By the time version 4.0 of VoiceXML rolls around, it will be feature-rich and capable of incredible voice possibilities and will be backward-compatible with anything you implement today.

By incorporating SIP compatibility into your platform, you not only add VoIP device connectivity but also call control and call traffic management as SIP standards and protocols evolve and more switches, gateways, and applications take advantage of its functionality.

Make sure that any voice access platform you're considering gives you both PSTN and VoIP interfaces. There may be dozens of soft switches and media gateways; make sure you're choosing ones with room to grow and evolve with SIP-based VoIP. As standards firm up and change, you'll need to make sure both your PSTN and IP voice connections can be upgraded.

BUILD FOR THE FUTURE
Make sure the platform can grow with demand. Can the platform support more and more sophisticated voice applications as you find new and better ways to add voice power to your e-commerce? What scaling levels can your PSTN and speech port equipment ultimately reach? Ideally, you'll want a platform that is easily expanded and can host multiple, completely separate voice applications at one time, on the same equipment. ASP's will find this essential, and even corporate and enterprise users will want to host different applications and services for different classes of customers. Along these same lines, load balancing and load sharing of speech recognition, call handling, and voice traffic must be a part of the system's architecture. Build expansion into your long-term game plan or face the consequences later.

Mil Ovan is president of Verascape. 

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