It seems a number of people have blogged and more accurately, speculated, about what VoiceXML means to Microsoft and how it came to be. I’ve also seen some funny posts like “the Unveil acquisition prompted it”. I’m sure everyone has their opinion. Regardless of how it came to be, I’m happy to see Microsoft adopt another W3C standard like VoiceXML. VoiceXML has certainly received mass adoption with companies like Tellme, Nuance, Voxeo and IBM pushing it – just to scratch the surface. But I think the Microsoft adoption announcement really helps put VoiceXML into the mainstream – while SALT was interesting for a few minutes, VoiceXML really has the traction and maturity in the industry. I’ve been asked a lot lately more details about Vocalocity’s involvement. I’m restricted in what I can say and certainly what I can blog about … the Vocalocity press release explains a little bit of the story. Of course, a good bit is untold and you’ll have to wait and see.
The world’s greatest speech application has been destroyed.
OK, that’s an overly dramatic headline – but it’s partially true. I’m really disappointed that yes.com decided to change their incredible speech app, yes, to something overly unimpressive. Normally, a well designed VUI that uses DTMF is perfectly okay to me. However, I think yes proved that a well written speech application VUI can be very incredible. The newest version is sooo lame, it’s almost illegal. Why would anyone use this service now? These guys should just shut the service down at this point.
Fonality announces 20 million calls on Asterisk
Fonality today issued a press release saying that they had achieved 20 million calls on their Asterisk-based platform. Good for them. I think what Asterisk and companies like Fonality prove is that telephony sucks – and the world of telephony is all about good applications and not proprietary hardware and systems. I believe SMB customers are starving for simple, quality applications – even one’s that are non-speech enabled – at something cost affordable.
Voice2.0
However, the macro picture as I have preached about for 5 years is that the trend is moving from hardward boxes to smart software applications – and from proprietary to standards. People are simple sick of lock-in – but beyond that, the larger whole is increased as people mashup different technologies into compelling applications. We’re seeing this in Web2.0 all over the place every day. We’ve not really seen this in the Voice world yet – however, I think that it’s coming. I think the combination of Web2.0 and Voice2.0 is around the corner and Voice2.0 is going to be about replacing everyday communcation tasks with one’s which are based on standards and software – and as easy as Web2.0. Voice2.0 however is still some ways away in my opinion. Why? Goto a site like technorati and see how many people are blogging about VoiceXML, CCXML and MRCP. Very little. The fact that the blogosphere has not picked up on these standards I believe is quite telling. Now google asterisk or Skype. Entire business models and startup businesses (and large existing companies) have adopted these 2 technologies. Skype is probably the largest VoIP network in the world – but one based entirely on a proprietary implementation, not based on the widely adopted SIP protocol. Asterisk is based on SIP (among other protocols like ISDN) and is open source. Certainly both Skype and Asterisk are not in the same realm as VoiceXML and MRCP – and that’s part of the really interesting opportunity in my opinion. But they represent two incredibly successful businesses and technologies that have taken the communications world by storm overnight. I think more is coming that’s incredibly more compelling, and open.
SIP Servlets Specification TCK Woes
It seems like the new JSR-289 expert group has been formed for SIP Servlets 1.1 – but I really wish someone would fix the fact that the TCK site cannot be accessed anymore for JSR-116. I’ve emailed the JCP Board, JSR-116 spec lead and the JSR-116 mailing list over the past week and not one response to my requests to obtain the TCK. I think it’s very irresponsible for JCP (and Sun) to not have the TCK accessible based on what their license stipulates. How can one obtain conformance without access to the TCK?
Technorati Tags: voicexml, microsoft, speech, sip, servlet, asterisk, jsr116, jsr239, voxeo, tellme, fonality, voice2.0
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