Voice Apps

November 20, 2000

The Web is Really Calling You: VocalPoint

VocalPoint is bringing voice to the internet. Your wireless phone can now call up the internet, and then your computer can read email, follow links, buy stocks, or read aloud the latest political scandals from plain old HTML sites using your voice as your keyboard.

VocalPoint's Business Plan Rings Clear

VocalPoint's team was crunched over the coffee table on the blistery November day, making me think they must have driven a cherry red convertible MG all the way from San Fransisco to New York. Half the team had a wide-eyed excitement from cornering tightly and flying down hills and the other half were hugging extra coats around themselves. The CEO of VocalPoint, Kurt Losert, former Vice President and General Manager of Technology, Strategy and Corporate development for Alta Vista, and also formerly Vice President of Compaq's Internet Services Division, wore a cool charcoal-grey mock turtle neck and sipped from a large steaming coffee as he explained their proposition. "If you've got an HTML structure on your web site - you've got a platform for our voice platform. That's all you need to create high quality voice-based web interaction with your customers. We don't require any systems integration. We don't require your partners to adopt the platform and the systems associated with that. We're very quick, very seamless, and very fast." Like the convertible parked outside.

VocalPoint's proposition is to bring added value to a business by providing middleware, infrastructure and services to access internet and intranet applications using natural speech over the phone. Its voice-based browser allows businesses to build customized voice portals and services. "We fit in the middle between live intra or internet content and the phone," explained Kurt Losert. "Our technology provides voice access anywhere, automatically. Without repurchasing, without systems integration, without systems needing to be maintained." VocalPoint needs a day to set up and about 10 hours of programming. VoiceXML takes 15 days to optimize a web site and over a hundred and fifty hours of programming hours. Forrester Research estimates the cost of voice optimizing a web site using VoiceXML is $250,000, where VocalPoint offers their solution on a "pay as you go" option with their ASP model.

First Partners: TelecomItalia and @boveHeath

CTO, Garry Chinnn, Ph.D., formerly of Tanner Research and Ford Aerospace, who also held a professorship at UCLA, leans over the table with wide eyes, clearly the one who has most enjoyed VocalPoint's convertible roller coaster ride. "The nice thing for @boveHealth, as their whole focus is using the web paged HTML interface, is that we really offer them the ability to extend their solution without spending much energy thinking about it - they've just decided to use VocalPoint and they have not had to spend any engineering resources on it."

@boveHealth's customer UCare chose @boveHealth because of their voice solution. Mark Hudson, VP and CFO of UCare says, "We selected the @boveHealth solution because of the power of the voice implementation."

On October 11th VocalPoint announced their second major customer, Telecom Italia. Driven by VocalPoint's VoiceBrowser™ technology, Telecom Italia's VoxNauta application guarantees voice access to any web site written in standard HTML code. This is great addition for Telecom Italia, as Italy has only twenty percent PC penetration rates but over fifty pervent wireless rates. If you are in Italy and you need to use the web, voice browsing is becoming the most common option.

How Does it Work?

The VocalPoint VoiceBrowser™ takes simple commands and converts them to HTML or XML text. Gary Chinn tells Unstrung, "Our browser uses cascading style sheets - the idea is the XML or HTML represents the content and the style sheets represent the presentation. So we separate the data from the representation." This technology differentiates VocalPoint from those using VoiceXML. VocalPoint's network allows for various "style sheets" making it possible in the future to use voice commands on PDA's, Smartphones, and new languages.

Voice recognition technology is not perfect. Accents are confusing and so are commands outside the range of vocabulary. However, VocalPoint uses the best speech technologies available, from Nuance, to L&H, to SpeechWorks. (VocalPoint has its own history of voice recognition expertise, having been awarded several SBIR grants for speech recognition in various high noise environments, such as the cockpits of F16 fighter planes.) And getting into the market ahead of others positions them well for when voice recognition technology is prevalent in the wireless web.

Is the Future Talking to MaChinnes?

Using a wireless phone to transmit only sound or to transmit only visual data is like trying to run with only one leg. Tripple-touch typing is still a pain, although both Google and Pinpoint are working on easier technologies. Using voice recognition to direct your wireless web browser would be extremely helpful.

Gary Chinn says, "That's exactly where we're headed with this. One of our key differentiation points between VoiceXML and WML is that our solution is really designed for a hybrid multi-mobile input. So the idea is eventually we can take the limitation of WAP browsers, their difficulty to navigate, and we can gravitate to a hybrid where you have visual information and audio information."

Kurt Losert adds, "So right now, the system as we've got it implemented - the user directs the choices - welcome to my Yahoo your options are - news, weather, sports, email. We'll in the future the user can say "San Franciso Weather" and instantly get that information. With our rapid access navigation a user can issue a few simple voice commands and using a WAP enabled phone they would be able to follow the visual display."

As the interview ended and I got up to leave Mr. Losert and Mr. Chinn were readily strapping on their driving goggles to zip the convertible called "VoiceBrowser™" around New York's streets. Michelle Sabolich, VocalPoint's Director of Marketing Communications, and Katherine Holland, V.P. of the Jona Group, VocalPoint's PR agency, gave each other steely glances, buttoned up their coats, and got ready for the next ride.

C.J. Kennedy makes a point of being vocal.