Wildfire Communications: "What can I do for you?"

RELease 1.0, Oct 19, 1994

Many communications products are marginal improvements over existing technologies. They patch a few problems and cause a few of their own. Wildfire Communications has taken a fresh look at the act of communication and has created an elegant and useful speech-recognition interface that helps expedite and simplify phone use, yet is positioned to move beyond the telephone. It is one of the most creative designs of a communications interface that we have seen. Think of it as a glimpse into the future that isn't a wishware video.

Wildfire uses a session approach. Instead of placing a call, hanging up, then placing another call (and fumbling with all the phone numbers and contact information between the calls), you dial once into your Wildfire assistant from your desk or the road. You don't need any special equipment to call in. Any ordinary phone will do. Once you are connected to Wildfire, it...well, she -- the current Wildfire system has a woman's voice, and people naturally personify it -- can place multiple calls for you.

You                  Wildfire
"Wildfire."          "Here I am."
"Call."              "Call whom?"
"Nick d'Arbeloff."   "At which place?"
"At work."           "Dialing." (phone rings, Nick answers)

While you're in session, Wildfire knows you're there and can do many other things for you. She can store and replay voicemail messages or your own reminders, deal with inbound calls and let you know who else is in session. At any point, say "Wildfire" and she reappears. If you then say "hang up," she will do so and you can place another call or check for messages. Wildfire keeps a profile of how she can reach you and how to handle inbound calls, which you can update at any time.

You                Wildfire
"Wildfire."        "What can I do for you?
"Find."            "Find what?"
"Messages."        "I found four messages. The first is..."
"What's it say?"   (Plays the message.)

Wildfire smooths the process of completing calls and helps you be more available to callers. The system does a good job of identifying callers, so you spend much less time than before tapping numbers into the dialpad or looking up information in your Filofax or PIM. For example, the informed call waiting feature asks callers to speak their name, then plays that in your ear only (regardless where you're calling from) so you can decide what to do. If you ignore the call, Wildfire takes a message. If Wildfire identifies the caller by recognizing the name, she can take further action. (Long run, it's easy to imagine Wildfire listening for commands all day long over an open microphone. Today, though, costs dictate otherwise.)

Much of the Wildfire system's value is in the care that designers have taken in creating and tuning the interface, which is, of course, hard to describe without a demo. Luckily, this is easy to fix: Dial 1-800-WILDFIRE to take a five-minute spin and overhear a sample interaction.

The relative value of voice and video

Bill Warner, Wildfire's chairman and ceo, founded Avid Technology in 1987. Avid dramatically changed video post-production by turning $500,000 worth of analog video editing equipment into a digital editing platform that costs as little as $50,000. When Avid was on its way and doing well, Warner got the itch to create a low-cost LAN video communication product.

You                Wildfire
(On a call.)       (Ring) "Bruce Sterling."
                   (in Bruce's voice, for you only)
"I'll take it."

The more Warner pursued the idea of desktop video, the more he realized that the place to start was with voice communications, which is in many ways preferable to video. He spent some time thinking broadly about communications and kept returning to the phone as the most essential and ubiquitous tool. He also noted that it could use a lot more functionality, so he decided to build software to enhance communications that would be so cool that it would spread like, well...wildfire. In December, 1991, Warner and Nick d'Arbeloff, now the vp of marketing, joined forces with Rich Miner and Tony Lovell, the eventual director of engineering and interface designer, respectively, and financed Wildfire Communications.

You                     Wildfire
"Goodbye, Wildfire."    "Thank you. Goodbye!"

Originally the four founders planned to open a service bureau focused on sales automation, but they had a hard time explaining the concepts to venture capitalists and the market potential seemed small. Then they refocused to sell customer premise equipment targeted to corporations with highly paid, mobile individuals such as financial analysts, consultants, executive recruiters and investment bankers. They also made Wildfire more of an entity or character, which helped greatly. In 1992 they got $2 million from Matrix and other investors; in 1993, Greylock Partners, who originally funded Avid, took part in a second round of $5.3 million.

Different angles on recognition

The Wildfire interface -- the "sound and attitude" that Tony Lovell and the team have designed -- is a clear differentiator and one of the company's key assets. Wildfire has personality without spurious cuteness. Since speaker-independent, continuous, large-vocabulary speech recognition doesn't exist, the design team achieved Wildfire's natural effect through careful engineering, principally in flow control and phrasing.