|
March 07, 2001
 |
 
VocalPoint Technologies
CEO of VocalPoint Technologies, Kurt Losert chats with
CNNfn on how the company provides businesses the software
and services that extend existing Web content into quality
voice services.
Read the interview transcript.
|
RHONDA SCHAFFLER,
CNNfn ANCHOR, MARKET CALL: Today in our Maverick of
the Morning segment, we turn out attention to voice-enabled
Internet content. One company says its technology is the fastest
and easiest to use. And "PC Magazine" might agree.
The magazine named VocalPoint Technologies as one of its top
Internet business sites in this month's addition.
Joining us now to talk about VocalPoint is its CEO, Kurt
Losert. Thanks for joining us and congratulations on that
honor.
KURT LOSERT, CEO, VOCALPOINT TECHNOLOGIES:
Thank you very much, Rhonda.
SCHAFFLER: Why don't you explain
how your technology works--to start us off.
LOSERT: What our technology
does is it revolutionizes the way business provide access
to critical information for their customers, employees and
partners. What we do is take existing Internet applications
and automatically create a voice experience for them. Given
that, companies can, in a matter of days or weeks, create
voice services that allow anyone to access that critical business
information, anytime, anywhere, using any phone.
What our technology does is it automatically creates this
experience, and it eliminates the very expensive, very time-consuming
traditional approach of developing custom voice applications.
As examples of where this technology can be applied: a mobile
worker can use a wireless phone to access critical e-mails
out of their home office; employees throughout a company can
use a dial-in service to access critical health care plan
information; a mobile workforce can find the latest spot prices
before they enter into customer contracts.
We're working with companies today to enable all of those
types of applications.
MURIEL SIEBERT: Could this be
used as a-- for a CRM system, a customer management system?
LOSERT: Absolutely. The only
requirements of our technology to work, are: there's got to
be a Web-based access to that information, and a desire to
take that information and make it available, using any phone,
worldwide.
SIEBERT: All right. Would it
have security on it? Would it have total security?
LOSERT: Because we're-- our
core technology is a browser, we're leveraging all the security
conditions and security mechanisms that a company has used
to provide the Web access to that information. So we're as
secure as any other mechanism, using the Internet protocols
to access that information.
SCHAFFLER: What is the growth
potential for this?
LOSERT: We believe it's huge.
There are a number of different applications. There's a lot
of activities right now in the consumer voice portal space.
There's a lot of corporate applications where it's critical
that employees and customers get access to this information,
wherever they are. Because of that, and because of the flexibility
of our application, traditional approaches to doing this --like
providing live operator assistance to the customer -- can
be avoided, and the more routine tasks can be automatically
handled by our voice browser solution.
SIEBERT: Do you have any applications
on Wall Street or at the banks?
LOSERT: We don't have any applications
today with Wall Street or the banks. Financial services is
an area that we're interested in. Our focus up to now has
been developing applications and using our capabilities in
telecommunications. Telecom Italia (URL: http://www.telecomitalia.it/)
is an example of a customer right now who's deploying a whole
range of consumer and business-focused services, leveraging
the Internet, the Web to provide the voice content.
We're working with a utility right now to develop a voice-enabled
energy contract price access system. We're working with healthcare
providers to provide voice-based access to critical healthcare
plan information, doctors covered by the plan, et cetera.
So, a number of applications throughout a number of different
vertical segments.
SCHAFFLER: Kurt Losert, CEO
of VocalPoint, thanks for joining us; appreciate it.
LOSERT: Thank you, Rhonda.
|
