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Global Speech Day, Industry Defining Event on Speech Technology, Attracts Over 5,000 Registrants
URL(s): www.globalspeechday.com
Validates Global Market Interest in Speech; Archived Content Available through June at www.globalspeechday.com
BOSTON, May 30, 2002 - Global Speech Day 2002, the online speech technology event held last week, attracted over 5,000 registrants
from over 80 countries, 2,500 organizations and more than 60 Fortune 100 companies. Thirty-five percent of the registrants were from outside North America.
Presented by SpeechWorks International, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPWX), the global leader in speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies and services, this
free, two-day, live Web event, held May 21 and 22, provided a high-energy exchange of information available to participants worldwide via streaming video over
the Internet. More than 18,000 visitors from around the world accessed the Global Speech Day site since it went live in early-March 2002. Global Speech Day
content remains available and free to the public through June 30, 2002 at www.globalspeechday.com.
Extra, Extra, Hear All About It
The Global Speech Day 2002 event engaged both a business and technology audience, covering topics such as R.O.I., best practices in developing customer
applications, VoiceXML, SALT, multimodal devices, platforms and the latest developments in call center and telecommunications services and forecasts regarding
the future of the speech market. Following are some highlights of the event:
-- During the customer luminary panel, United Airlines' managing
director of customer service, Bob Bongiorno, discussed the
R.O.I. of United's flight information speech application,
based on SpeechWorks technology. United's flight information
system at 800.824.6200 has taken over 50 million calls since
it went live at the end of 1999 and has saved United Airlines
over $25 million handling routine flight arrival and departure
inquiries. The cost to handle a flight inquiry call went down
from 65 cents to 16 cents with speech.
-- In the opening day keynote SpeechWorks CEO, Stuart Patterson,
introduced an industry achievement model: The SpeechWorks
5-C(TM). From ongoing assessment of hundreds of successful
deployed applications, SpeechWorks has distilled five Critical
Speech Factors (CSFs) common to the most successful speech
service deployments. Patterson outlined the 5-C model's five
CSFs, including Caller motivation, Caller monetization, Caller
performance, Caller affiliation and Caller behavior, and
introduced the concept of an applications "Speech IQ", a
measurement system to benchmark each of the five Critical
Speech Factors.
-- A panel with InterVoice-Brite and its customer, the State of
Michigan, discussed how speech recognition from SpeechWorks
has enabled the State to effectively handle the influx of
calls it receives during tax season. During the panel, Jeri
Sibert, analyst for the State of Michigan's customer contact
center, revealed that the State has saved over $2 million each
year with speech. The average cost per agent call is $1.65,
and 15 cents per call with speech. This R.O.I. proves that
speech carries a significant return for organizations with
small call centers, as well as those organizations that take
many millions of calls each year, such as United Airlines.
-- During the technology day closing keynote, Mike Phillips,
SpeechWorks' CTO with Rich Miner, vice president of
imagineering at Orange, the second largest mobile operator in
Europe, demonstrated the vision of speech technologies in
people's day-to-day lives, from sunrise to sunset, through an
online video presentation. The vision, which is shared by
SpeechWorks and its partners, is one of speech technologies
permeating our everyday interactions, from waking up in the
morning and preparing for the day to booking an entire
business trip through wireless and multimodal devices, and is
shared by SpeechWorks and Orange as well as other partners
around the world.
Experts Share Views and Engage Participants
At Global Speech Day, attendees took part in live presentations and online chat sessions where hundreds of questions were answered by leading speech scientists,
analysts, standards experts, developers and business leaders from organizations such as America Online, AT&T, GartnerGroup, Intel, Motorola, Microsoft and
Texas Instruments. Participants from around the world declared Global Speech Day 2002 a critical event to attend, whether they were in the early stages of
adopting speech or already familiar with the technologies. Comments from participants included:
-- "Global Speech Day was an excellent way to learn about speech
-- right from our desktops. We logged on and came away with
new ideas about meeting business goals with speech," said a
director with a leading hotel and leisure company.
-- "Global Speech Day 2002 demonstrated the growing interest and
acceptance of speech in business. It was very valuable to
learn about the range of global case studies and the business
models they served," said Hasmish Stewart, executive, Telecom
New Zealand.
-- "Global Speech Day was a breath of fresh air. The quality of
the presentations and presenters was what you would expect
from an event you would pay to go and see. It was the perfect
blend of presentations of topical interest such as `Speech in
Automotive, mobile devices and set top boxes,' panel
discussions with industry analysts and company leaders in the
area of speech deployment, and customer and partner
presentations," stated Nancy Jamison, industry analyst,
Jamison Consulting.
Global Speech Day: Made Possible with Partners
Global Speech Day was presented by SpeechWorks and Gold sponsor partners, Edify Corporation, iBasis, Intel Corporation, InterVoice-Brite, Inc., NMS
Communications, Pracom, System Development Company of New Hampshire, Inc. and Unified Communications. Silver sponsors are Adeptra, Aspect
Communications UK, Ltd., Avaya, Comverse, Diagenix, Frank Solutions, Gold Systems, Inflection Technologies, Information Technologies Australia, NetByTel,
Nortel Networks, SandCherry, Telemanagement Australia Pty Ltd., Unisys, VoiceGenie Technologies, Inc., VisibleVoice Pty Ltd. and West Corporation. Media
sponsors are callcentres.net, CommWeb, Contactcenterworld and Speech Technology Magazine.
Site live until June 30, 2002
Anyone who missed the live event or wants to explore additional presentations about speech may visit www.globalspeechday.com through the month of June.
The site also includes industry news, speech demos, and downloadable white papers on speech.
About SpeechWorks International, Inc.
Through the power of SpeechWorks technologies, the human voice is all a person needs to access instant information and conduct transactions from a phone or
device. Around the world, customer service innovators such as America Online, Amtrak, Credit Suisse First Boston, Thrifty Car Rental and Yahoo! are realizing
returns on SpeechWorks applications that consistently delight and serve customers 24 hours a day. With over 170 partners, SpeechWorks (Nasdaq: SPWX)
delivers natural language speech recognition, speaker verification and text-to-speech (TTS) solutions to leading corporations, telecommunications providers, device
manufacturers and government organizations worldwide. For a description of our products, services and unique customer programs such as SpeechWorks Here
S.T.E.P.(TM) (Speech Technology Evaluation Process) call 617.428.4444 or visit www.speechworks.com.
SpeechWorks, The SpeechWorks 5-C and SpeechWorks Here STEP are trademarks or registered trademarks of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United
States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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