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Leveraging XML knowledge to design, develop, and deploy speech applications: packaged apps ease the process.

Article Excerpt
The voice solutions market is fueled by the rapidly growing number of consumers who want easy anytime, anywhere access to information and services via any device--wireline or wireless. With more than 1.5 billion phones and over 800 million mobile device users and 1 billion landline accounts worldwide, the telephone has become the ultimate access device to the Internet.

Enterprises are looking for new ways to reach the consumer as well as extend the information to their employees. This combination is creating a powerful force that is driving the voice business market. Additionally, vast improvements in advanced speech recognition technologies have brought new applications into mainstream use as enterprises seek to increase revenues while reducing costs. In fact, the Kelsey Group has estimated that the U.S. market for voice-activated applications and infrastructure targeting both the enterprise and carrier markets will hit $2.2B by 2006, with open standards-based solutions overtaking proprietary voice response platforms by the end of 2003.

Our Development Challenge

As enterprises face increasing cost pressures and the need to generate additional revenues through product and service differentiation, new solutions are needed to deliver consistently high-quality customer service while improving operational efficiencies. Customer service through recent investments in Web technology tackle part of the business challenge, but this approach...