IBM Corp’s Speech Recognition unit, which has been telling us that this year is the year of the partner in promoting speech technology and its own ViaVoice brand (CI No 3,405), has notched a deal with Applied Language Technologies to offer speech-driven telephony packages to corporate customers. Boston-based ALTech is a closely-held company that specializes […]
IBM Corp’s Speech Recognition unit, which has been telling us that this year is the year of the partner in promoting speech technology and its own ViaVoice brand (CI No 3,405), has notched a deal with Applied Language Technologies to offer speech-driven telephony packages to corporate customers. Boston-based ALTech is a closely-held company that specializes in computer-telephone interaction technology. The agreement will see ALTech’s SpeechWorks tools for developing and deploying computer telephony applications adapted to support IBM’s ViaVoice Telephony RunTime engine on the IBM Direct Talk platform – the hardware and software server package that acts as a bridge between the telecom equipment and the enterprise. No terms of the deal were disclosed. The two say the combination of technologies will enable companies to build custom speech-activated telephony applications on DirectTalk that will allow callers to not only retrieve information but complete transactions without an operator or touch-tone menu. Also as part of the deal, ALTech will offer IBM customers and business partners access to its professional services, which include consultation, application development and systems integration. Likely targets for the combined offerings will be anyone interested in facilitating activities such as buying airline or movie tickets, performing personal banking transactions or obtaining navigational instructions. ALTech, which has been around since 1994 and lists Intel Corp among its financial backers, has previously bagged customers such as E*Trade Group Inc and United Airlines. The deal with ALTech comes as the latest for IBM in its continuing push to fend off competition from rivals Dragon Systems Inc and Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV. The IBM speech group has already signed nearly 20 deals this year, including those with Intel Corp, Broderbund Software Inc, Voice Control Systems Inc and International Microcomputer Software Inc. Big Blue is doing all it can to promote the use of speech recognition, figuring that its 25 years of development work will leave it well-poised to capitalize on the market when it matures.
