Vocalis Speechware Paves the Way for Next-Generation Speech Recognition

Vocalis, the Cambridge-based speech recognition telephony company, is announcing the availability of the latest release of its Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) package, Vocalis SpeechWare.

Vocalis SpeechWare is already installed at major customers throughout the world and is the market leader for large scale network operator services. Simultaneously with the availability of the new release, Vocalis is also announcing the availability of Vocalis SpeechWare for third party developers in the open market for the first time.

"This latest release of Vocalis SpeechWare paves the way for a new generation of speech recognition technology", explains Andy Walker, Head of Product Marketing for Vocalis. "In an extensive survey of users of speech recognition technology for telephony applications, Vocalis confirmed and expanded its view of what the market is really looking for. The latest version of Vocalis SpeechWare represents a significant step along the road towards this new 3rd generation architecture", added Walker.

The release adds support for Windows NT to the existing availability for SCO UNIX. It builds on the highly innovative core Vocalis SpeechWare technology, which was designed from the start to specifically address the complex demands of natural language speech recognition over both wireline and wireless telephone networks. A significant feature is a brand new API layer giving developers access to all the recogniser parameters required to build sophisticated applications.

The high-end capabilities of Vocalis SpeechWare include phoneme and word-based recognition, flexible grammar capabilities (with the ability to generate and activate grammars "on the fly"), word-spotting, extended vocabularies, and the use of confidence measures. It is ideal for use in a wide range of applications including call centre automation, network operator services, call routing and information services.

"This release is exciting for Vocalis because it makes Vocalis's speech recognition available to everyone. Whilst the market is growing at a phenomenal rate, there is still tremendous growth potential. With the wide range of available languages from Vocalis and a new approach to cost-effectiveness and scalability in the 3^rd generation architecture, the availability of Vocalis SpeechWare to third parties removes many of the barriers to adoption for speech recognition technology. By enabling developers to provide the speech recognition equivalent of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to their telephony applications without the need for specialist support, Vocalis SpeechWare aims to make the use of speech recognition as widespread as the GUI is today", added Walker.

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