http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/ en Copyright 2008 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:09:32 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Convergys acquiring Intervoice. I have to say that I’m always somewhat surprised about these things, but not really, and when I look back on Intervoice for the past year the timing made great sense. There had been rumors of a small shedding of people over the last few months, but a lot of companies are doing that. That wasn’t a huge clue. The biggest change, that would make them an attractive acquisition target, but not a predictor of being acquired, was that they finally completed the roadmap they had set out do when they acquired Edify. That is, they finished merging the two product lines into a single software-only platform of solutions. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/just_when_it_was_quiet_converg.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/just_when_it_was_quiet_converg.html Contact Centers Self-Service/IVR Speech Technologies contact center self-service speech technologies Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:09:32 -0500 Vlingo, announced a new product, Vlingo for Blackberry, which will allow users to create and send e-mails and text-messages, search the Web, work with mobile applications such as dialing their phones, look up contacts or work with their calendars - all using unconstrained speech. This speech applications works on all Blackberry devices, which I was happy about as I have a Blackberry Pearl and applications such as FaceBook, are sorely lacking in functionality on the smaller Pearl keyboard. I’m going to try out Vlingo for Blackberry. Hey, if I’m lucky they will have voice-enabled FaceBook so I can carry my social network addiction on the road. Something like Vlingo would be spot on perfect for the Blackberry Pearl, as it has a small keyboard that has dual letters for each key. FaceBook for Blackberry has a password screen that doesn’t show you the letter that you have typed in the password fields, for security reasons. The problem with this is that with the error correcting mode for typing on the Blackberry, if you can’t see your password, you have no idea what letter Blackberry has put into the password field as it tries to guess at the correct spelling of a word. It’s impossible to log on. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/speech_technologies_are_alive.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/speech_technologies_are_alive.html Contact Centers Self-Service/IVR Speech Analytics Speech Recognition Speech Technologies contact centers IVR speech analytics speech technologies Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:50:16 -0500 It’s the dog days of summer in telecom. Just what are the dog days? According to Wikipedia “The phrase Dog Days or "the dog days of summer", refers to the hottest, most sultry days of summer. They are a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere that usually falls between July and early September but the actual dates vary greatly from region to region, depending on latitude and climate. Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant.” It’s no only hot in here, since I dropped the kids off at camp and came home to my closed up house and an air conditioner that wasn’t working – and tomorrow is when the heat wave is supposed to start, it’s also that stagnant time of year in telecom. http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/its_the_dog_days_of_summer_in.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/07/its_the_dog_days_of_summer_in.html Contact Centers Speech Technologies Unified Communications contact center speech technologies unified communications Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:32:30 -0500 Siemens Enterprise held their global analyst event last week in beautiful Vienna, Austria, and in addition to wanting to get an update on the business, possibly every analyst in attendance was eager to find out if Siemens was going to announce which company would take over the enterprise business. However, as Brian Riggs of Current Analysis pointed out in his ‘Siemens Enterprise: June Wedding Postponed’ (loved that title) blog on NoJitter, there was no long awaited news on who the lucky partner would be for Siemens – yet. However, that didn’t stop many analysts at the event from trying to squeeze shreds of info out of Siemens execs as to who it might be, yet they remained strong and didn’t and couldn’t say. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/06/siemens_enterprise_global_anal.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/06/siemens_enterprise_global_anal.html Contact Centers SMB Unified Communications contact center SMB unified communications Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:31:04 -0500 Blair Pleasant and I had finished our UC end user benefits study we did a webinar on the findings that was sponsored by Genesys and CMP. Out of that we had a number of follow up questions from the audience, including quite a few from our colleague Art Rosenberg, who posted a review of the study on UC Strategies.com.]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/06/users_love_unified_communicati_1.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/06/users_love_unified_communicati_1.html Fax IM Unified Communications Unified Messaging Voice Messaging Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:24:38 -0500 UCStrategies.com brand. The study focuses on how end users use UC and how it impacts their productivity. Rather than targeting the IT managers who are responsible for implementing and running the UC systems and asking them what they felt the impacts of UC were, we surveyed and interviewed the real end users who use UC to find out how, or even if, UC is helping them be more productive and effective in their day-to-day jobs. The study focused on four different job types – executive/management, operations (including engineering and IT), sales and marketing, and back office operations, particularly human resources. Go to my home page to click on the download. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/users_love_unified_communicati.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/users_love_unified_communicati.html Unified Communications unified communications Fri, 30 May 2008 15:49:05 -0500 Cisco announced a sales milestone of 500 TelePresence units ordered since the product was launched a year and a half ago. That might not sound like a lot, but we aren’t talking about cellphones or Barbie dolls, but really big video conferencing rooms and equipment. It also makes Cisco the current front runner in selling really big telepresence solutions, and it speaks volumes about how important this type of technology is for business. Companies are investing in video conferencing. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/the_value_of_video_continues_u.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/the_value_of_video_continues_u.html Unified Communications Video unified communications video Tue, 27 May 2008 16:30:54 -0500 Syntellect to see what has gone on since I last blogged about Voiyager, Syntellect’s incredible application testing technology. I’d seen a few press releases on recent successes, including one in April on a win of one of the largest dental insurance carriers (name withheld to further disappoint this analyst in her 12 days of UC wish for more referenceable accounts). Besides not revealing the customer name, the press release left out some of the jaw dropping results of the customer test. The main details of the press release were:]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/syntellects_voiyager_voyage_co.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/syntellects_voiyager_voyage_co.html Contact Centers Self-Service/IVR Speech Technologies Tue, 20 May 2008 16:21:30 -0500 It’s been a quarter since I blogged my industry wish list for unified communications, so I figured I would revisit the list to see how we are doing. I don’t want to make this a beauty contest as there have been so many announcements, big and small, particularly as we had a number of voice shows last quarter, but here are some highlights. One caveat; just because we have had a lot of announcements this quarter doesn’t mean we have marked anything off of the list. It just means we have made progress in several categories. Here is a recap of my December “wish list” song, and the category each line represents: http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/the_twelve_days_of_unified_com_12.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/the_twelve_days_of_unified_com_12.html Assistive Technology Contact Centers Presence SMB Self-Service/IVR Speech Recognition Speech Technologies Telepresence Unified Communications Unified Messaging Voice Messaging assistive technology contact centers SMB speech recognition speech technologies telepresence unified communications unified messaging Thu, 01 May 2008 14:52:05 -0500 CapitolOne, and their egregiously bad use of speech recognition, coupled with lack of CTI into their contact center. However, things aren’t all bad in contact center land as I just had a quite opposite and stellar experience when I called Replacements Ltd. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/a_contact_center_using_cti_mak.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/05/a_contact_center_using_cti_mak.html Contact Centers contact center Thu, 01 May 2008 13:21:04 -0500 Dimension Data. For whatever reason, prior to Cisco’s UC summit last fall I hadn’t paid much attention to Dimension Data, but since sitting in on that presentation, I’ve been keenly interested in what they do and their business model. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/dimension_data_uses_its_experi.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/dimension_data_uses_its_experi.html Unified Communications Unified communications Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:42:57 -0500 Active Voice, who have been in the voice/unified messaging market for more than a decade, has finally cracked the code on providing an affordable, single-digit IQ (SDIQ ) installation, speech-enabled auto-attendant for the SMB market. That would be the many people are starting to pay attention to, but still much underserved SMB market. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/active_voice_speak_speechenabl.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/active_voice_speak_speechenabl.html SMB Speech Recognition Speech Technologies SMB speech recognition Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:44:18 -0500 Intervoice has finally merged their enterprise and network platforms into one, both from a solutions and philosophy standpoint. That is one of the key takeaways that I got from having attended the Intervoice industry analyst event in DC this week. That doesn’t sound like such a big deal but it is when you consider that it completes a transition born out of a) moving to a software and services company from one that a decade ago was proprietary down to the board level, b) melding two very different businesses – service provider and enterprise, c) completing the integration of some big acquisitions – namely Brite, Edify, and Nuasis d) blending together contact center, self-service (IVR), messaging and notification onto the same platform. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/intervoice_contact_portal_broa.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/intervoice_contact_portal_broa.html Contact Centers Self-Service/IVR Voice Messaging contact center IVR messaging self-service Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:18:47 -0500 Yahoo Inc. announced a collaboration with speech start-up Vlingo in which Vlingo will provide the speech recognition to compliment Yahoo’s oneSearch search technology for mobile phone applications. Marco Boerries, EVP of Yahoo’s Connected life division; the one that focuses on mobile products, did a demo of the new Yahoo! oneSearch at CTIA, by asking the application where is the best play to play craps in Las Vegas. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/vlingo_and_yahoo_more_respect.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/04/vlingo_and_yahoo_more_respect.html Speech Recognition Speech Technologies Unified Communications mobility speech recognition speech technologies Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:27:13 -0500 Wyde Voice at the VON conference in San Jose yesterday. Unfortunately, its not about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, although that is pretty much what I had for lunch at the show with back to back vendor meetings (bless those vendor candy bowls). In any case, there were a number of great technical tidbits that Wyde offered up about their new wideband audio conferencing technology, but the one that grabbed me the most, that I’ll talk about first, is that they will be offering voice verification as part of audio conferencing, and this is something I haven’t seen or heard about before. Being the speech girl that I am, I like it. It’s like combining peanut butter and chocolate. ]]> http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/03/voice_verification_and_confere.html http://jamison-consulting.com/blog/2008/03/voice_verification_and_confere.html Conferencing Speech Technologies Unified Communications Voice Verification conferencing speech technologies voice verification Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:05:04 -0500