IBM Labs Unleash Powerful Speech Software

20 Aug 2008

IBM unveiled speech recognition software to clients and partners exploring the development of real-world consumer and business solutions.

As part of an effort to bring IBM Research's vaunted intellectual capital directly into the marketplace, the opening of IBM Research's speech assets will make it easier for IBM customers and partners to gain a competitive advantage in new markets by integrating the industry's most advanced speech recognition software.

"One of the unique ways IBM Research stays ahead of the competition is by looking at innovations that will have a real-world impact," said David Nahamoo, IBM Fellow and CTO Speech Technology, IBM Research. "Now, through our collaborative model, we are helping the IT market explore new growth opportunities enabled by our state-of-the-art speech technologies and solutions."

More than 15 years after the introduction of IBM's first dictation products a lot has changed. Now, IBM speech software allows consumers to interact with car navigation and entertainment systems; transforms the way patients receive healthcare; helps children learn to read; enables companies to gain new business insights and improve customer service through interactions with their clients and allows people to communicate with others who speak different languages.

Today, IBM's speech technology is being utilized in the emerging areas of voice search and interaction, transcription for voicemail and accessible education, language conversion and business intelligence.

"Speech is becoming increasingly equivalent to text due to decades of research investment such as that of IBM Research. Improved performance and tools for interpreting the resulting text are driving rapid growth, for example, of speech as an interface to mobile phones," said Dr. Bill Meisel, President TMA Associates. "One particularly effective approach is the Voice Search model -- just say what you want and get it -- to shorten transactions. Transcription of voicemail and call-center conversations to text makes it possible to quickly search and analyze the result, creating new growth and flexibility in unified communications and customer-service analytics."