VoiceObjects Opens Phone Application Server API, Releases XML Development Kit

WebKnowHow
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; 02:21 AM

VoiceObjects, a phone application server company, announced that it has made the application programming interface (API) for VoiceObjects Server, their phone application server, available to the public, enabling third-party companies to create IDEs and other tools for use with VoiceObjects Server. The company also announced the availability of VoiceObjects XDK, an XML development kit that helps tools vendors to create VoiceObjects-ready tools.

SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer, Angel.com’s Site Builder, OpenMethods’ openVXML Studio, and SpeechVillage’s SpeechDraw will be the first IDEs to support VoiceObjects Server via the newly available interface. The VoiceObjects XDK is included at no additional charge with VoiceObjects Server. Pricing for VoiceObjects Server begins at US$500.00 per port.

“VoiceObjects provides the only carrier-grade server environment that enables companies to provide automated personalized self-service that is light years ahead of conventional static voice response systems,” said Beatriz Infante, chief executive officer of VoiceObjects. “The open tools initiatives that we announced today will enable us to provide an ecosystem of high-quality tools to support our flagship phone application server.”

The VoiceObjects-compatible IDEs make the capabilities of VoiceObjects Server available to enterprises that have selected any of a wide variety of computing platforms:

• The new SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer supports mySAP Customer Relationship Management, mySAP ERP Human Capital Management and mySAP ERP environments

• The new SpeechVillage SpeechDraw supports Microsoft .Net environments

• The new OpenMethods openVXML Studio supports Eclipse, Java and Open Source

• The new Angel.com Site Builder operates on a Sofware-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, offering hosted IVR and call center solutions

Third-party tools that support VoiceObjects’s phone application server offer users the same benefits as VoiceObjects’s own Desktop tool. These benefits include:

• The ability to easily create personalized dialogs and prompt menus for increased customer satisfaction

• The ability to perform online application maintenance with no downtime, resulting in faster, more frequent application updates and optimized performance

• Easy integration with other enterprise IT assets via Web services

• Out-of-the-box drill-down analytics and reporting for dialog interaction and system usage

What is a Phone Application Server?

All phone application servers, including VoiceObjects Server, have the following four capabilities:

• The ability to dynamically generate VoiceXML to create personalized dialogs with each caller at call-time, using information in an organization’s CRM or other databases. The resulting caller-specific conversations provide opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell and higher rates of customer satisfaction and service adoption.
• An application execution environment that supports remote management and monitoring of multimodal applications, online application maintenance for instant changes or rollbacks, and guaranteed high availability.
• Web services support for easy integration between an organization’s phone-based self-service assets and its CRM, ERP, and other IT assets in service-oriented architecture (SOA) environments, dramatically reducing development time and cost.
• Support for multimodal phone applications that may include voice, video, graphics and text interfaces, allowing user-friendly interactive IVR applications that are unmatched in the phone-based self-service industry.