December 3, 1998 Web posted at: 12:00 PM EST by Ephraim Schwartz

From...

(IDG) -- Speech technology in 1999 will be found on your phone, at your hand, and in your car as companies begin to sense a growing market opportunity. Although the first help desk company to voice-enable its application via the phone has not stepped forward yet, industry analysts are expecting it to happen in 1999.

Lucent Technologies and Unisys announced last week a partnership that will combine the Lucent speech engine with the Unisys speech toolkits for use in call centers and help desks among other applications.

The results of this partnership may come as early as 1999, according to one analyst.

"These things always require one pioneer," said Bill Meisel, president of TMA Associates, in Tarzana, Calif., a speech technology research company. "I expect it to happen next year."

Unisys is currently working with companies such as Remedy to add voice routing capabilities to its help desk program.

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"Our tools will enable touch-tone developers to change into spoken language developers," said Rick Barchard, director of marketing for Unysis Natural Language, in Malvern, Pa. "Developers won't need a Ph.D. in linguists to create voice recognition programs."

Initially, help desk applications will route users to the right technician using natural language understanding and key words.

"If you stop and think about it, at least getting to the right person at a help desk is very structured, using only a few key words. Natural language in help desk environments is very constrained and very likely to be successful, particularly if the automated system can ask follow-up questions," Meisel said.

In a pilot program, Unisys voice-enabled a large retailer's internal help desk for call routing, with the projected savings estimated at more than $2 million in seven months, Barchard said.

"Sixty to seventy percent of help desk calls are routed incorrectly by live clerks," Barchard said.

Unisys also worked with a large auto insurance company which projected $7 million in savings during a five year period by responding to and routing customers looking for insurance estimates before they tired of waiting in a queue and hanging up the phone.

The combined Lucent-Unisys application will be available in March 1999, with pricing based on a per-seat developer cost.

Meanwhile, Dragon Systems introduced a unique voice enabled, battery-powered, handheld device in November that will allow users to create e-mails, schedule appointments, create call reminders and short notes, and update existing documents.

Dragon NaturallyOrganized understands phrases and stores them in Flash memory for download to a PC via the serial port. However, the phrases are not simply downloaded, but routed in the correct format to the appropriate applet in Symantec's Act personal information manager.

Dragon NaturallyOrganized is expected to ship this month.

Finally, TravRoute has created a voice-enabled software program that works with a Global Positioning System to allow hands-free, eyes-free directional information in a car.

CoPilot In-Car Navigation System gives turn-by-turn spoken directions and will respond to more than twenty questions such as "where am I" or "what's the next turn?"

The $199 system is shipping now.

InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz is based in San Mateo, Calif.