IBM And Speech Technology: An Interview With Bruce Morse

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Apr 2005

To give readers a more comprehensive picture of where IBM stands today in the realm of speech technologies, Customer Interaction Solutions recently spoke with Bruce Morse, vice president of Contact Center Solutions for the IBM Software Group. Morse is responsible for establishing IBM as a major software provider for developing, deploying and managing contact center solutions. He has over 25 years' of software and hardware experience in the information processing industry and has held executive positions in marketing, development, finance and business development. Prior to his current role, he was vice president, marketing, sales and business development for IBM's Pervasive Computing business. In that role, he built a number of strategic alliances that established industry software specifications and standards, and he significantly expanded IBM's software and services participation in the wireless/mobile and speech markets.

CIS: Historically, from where did IBM's speech technologies grow in IBM's product family?

Morse: IBM's interest and investment in speech recognition began at IBM Research over 30 years ago. We anticipated that as the technology matured it would become the preferred method of accessing and interacting with information technology in a wide variety of scenarios. We're now at an inflection point in speech recognition where users find it to be a satisfactory and pleasant way to do personal and company business.

IBM was the first to use a purely statistical approach to voice technology while others attempted to teach a computer how to mimic human linguistics. The early 1990s featured IBM dictation software. A few years later, IBM's first speech recognition software family, VoiceType, was produced. IBM ViaVoice products were introduced in the late 1990s, and they continue to evolve today in offerings such as IBM Embedded ViaVoice, which speech-enables personal digital assistants (PDAs) and in-vehicle telematics.

IBM speech technologies are now an integral part of the WebSphere family of products. They leverage WebSphere process and application integration capabilities to model, simulate and optimize business processes, and to reliably and seamlessly exchange data between multiple applications.

As a technology company that has helped millions of customers make smart IT investments, IBM is uniquely positioned to help companies extend access to those systems to their employees, customers and business partners. Just as the personal computer and Web browser have opened up application access to millions of users, speech technology extends access to the two billion telephones in the world today, as well as to all kinds of mobile devices.

As the most natural way to interact, speech is at the beginning of a tidal wave in contact centers, devices and automobiles. Speech allows people to interact easily and cost-effectively; it improves customer service and lowers cost. The return on investment (ROI) for speech-enabled applications can be dramatic.

CIS: Why do you believe that speech is best delivered in an on-demand model?

Morse: In today's business environment, companies have to be flexible, responsive and able to take advantage of opportunities instantly. That is the essence of the on-demand model. As a primary interface to a company's customers, speech-enabled applications are at the forefront of the on-demand model. Contact centers worldwide are increasingly looking at integrating all methods of customer interaction, including Web and telephone, to ensure a consistent customer experience, reduce cost and drive revenue growth through cross-selling and upselling. Speech-enabled contact centers ensure that up-to-the-minute customer information is available and leveraged across multiple communications channels. For example, a retail bank may want to know when a customer calls requesting forms to apply for a home equity loan so [the bank] can immediately route [the customer] to a live agent, bypassing the speech application entirely in order to close the business quickly. When interest rates change, the bank may want to change its Web and speech-enabled applications immediately to cross-sell certain offerings over others. IBM provides highly flexible and customizable speech solutions built on the highly acclaimed WebSphere Application Server platform.

CIS: Why do you believe a company like IBM is better suited to offer speech than its many niche competitors?

Morse: Speech has evolved into a mature enabling technology that reaches far beyond turning spoken words into text. Speech extends access and interaction to an enterprise's data and business processes, improving customer service while reducing the total cost of completing a transaction. Integrating speech access to business processes in a cost-effective, flexible and secure way requires a deep understanding of the enterprise's IT infrastructure and business processes. IBM's position as the leading middleware provider and our expertise in business process transformation uniquely position us to help our clients leverage speech to improve customer service, reduce cost and drive incremental revenue.