Speech technologies will be integrated into future
versions of Microsoft Exchange Server as the company makes a push
into unified messaging.
The company’s speech technology products are currently aimed at
the call center and interactive voice response markets. But
integrating speech technology into Exchange Server will produce a
combined voice and e-mail messaging system for businesses.
“We’re very excited about this partnership with Exchange and
believe that offering speech-enabled unified messaging capabilities
to the millions of Exchange users will go a long way to help
achieve the goal of driving speech mainstream,” said Rich Bray,
general manager of the Speech Server group at Microsoft.
The announcement came at the annual SpeechTEK Exposition and
Educational Conference in New York, where the software giant also
announced that more than 60 companies – working in finance, retail,
healthcare and government – had chosen its Speech Server platform
for their interactive voice response systems.
