"Voice Web"
Nuance touts voice as next Web interface
By Ed Scannell
From: InfoWorld - October 11, 1999 - page 8

Hoping to do for the emerging "voice Web" what browsers did for the Web,
Nuance has unveiled a voice browser, dubbed "Voyager," that lets phone users
access information and conduct electronic business on voice-enabled Web sites. 

The software's voice interface gives users a way to navigate their ways
through a voice Web using spoken hyperlinks and common-sense commands. 

"The Web didn't explode until it got a common navigational interface," said
Ronald Croen, president and CEO of Nuance. "Voyager is in the same position
now to do that for voice."  

At Internet World last week, Croen said Voyager can supply telecommunications
carriers with a platform on which they can build a range of profitable
services. By making the product available to their users, they can create
"voice-portal" services and electronic-commerce capabilities for consumer
markets. 

"It fits with British Telecom's vision, and can become the basis for
providing information and services through natural-speech technology," said
Jeremy Stafford, general manager of voice solutions for British Telecom (BT). 

Stafford said that, over the next year, BT intends to work with Nuance to
deploy several of Voyager's capabilities in e-commerce applications. 

Some analysts believe the new technology makes good use of the Web and
telephone and could help speed the growth of e-commerce. 

"Voyager looks like it has the potential to radically alter the way carriers
do business, but at the same time expand the electronic-commerce market,"
said Megan Gurley, a telecommunications analyst at the Yankee Group, in
Boston. 

Users can personalize the product's range of capabilities by streamlining
access to their most commonly used numbers and voice sites. 

Nuance also unveiled V-Builder, a development tool that allows users to build
voice interfaces to Internet sites and speech applications that users can
access through Voyager. V-Builder uses a combination of the company's
Speech-Objects - essentially a series of reusable application components, and
VoxML programming language. It allows a voice interface to be mapped on a Web
page by using SpeechObjects and basic drag-and-drop commands, according to
Nuance officials. 

Voyager will enter beta testing in early 2000 with availability slated for
mid-2000. 

Nuance Communications Inc., in Menlo Park, CA, is at http://www.nuance.com.