Chris Spencer of Wizzard
Q. Chris, what is going on with Wizzard?
A. Lots of long hours, very little sleep. I'm joking of course to some extent, but these are exciting times for our industry and our company, and you can feel it around the office and throughout our organization. We're seeing more customers, more great product ideas, and more excitement from the media and our shareholders. It seems as if all our hard work over the years is starting to pay off and I'm not the only one noticing it. When you've got secretaries and technical support staff coming to work early and staying late, with big smiles on their faces, you know you're on to something. We recently launched a new product called the Talking Pill Bottle and the excitement it's generating is infectious.
Q. Speaking of the 'Talking Pill Bottle' please elaborate a little more on this product.
A. When it comes to the Talking Pill Bottle, I can honestly tell you that after spending almost 10 years in the speech industry, it is by far the most useful and exciting application of speech technology that I've ever seen. When MedivoxRx, a potential customer, came to us to assist them in incorporating text-to-speech and some automation to their product, we fell in love with it immediately and aggressively moved towards acquiring them. The product itself is very simple, which is one of its biggest selling points. Picture a standard prescription pill bottle that you would obtain from your local pharmacy. Now picture it having a white cap on top as usual, as well as a white cap on the bottom. That white cap on the bottom has a little button on it and when pressed, you hear, using text-to-speech based audio files, the same prescription instructions as are printed on the label. It takes just seconds for the pharmacist to load while at the same time printing out the traditional label.
Q. Who are some of your customers for the 'Talking Pill Bottle' and what has been the reaction of their customers?
A. In order to automate the loading of text-to-speech based wave files onto the bottle we had to make some design modifications which were just completed in the fourth quarter of 2004. So, at this time, we're currently ramping up our sales and marketing efforts. To date, we have customers such as the U.S. Army and several Veterans Administration pharmacies, as well as several retail and online pharmacies distributing the product. I can tell you that the pharmacists really seem to love the product. I've personally heard on many occasions pharmacists say that 20-30 percent of their patients or customers could really benefit from the Talking Pill Bottle. The end user reactions we've been hearing so far are very positive. Taking medication is a serious thing and it worries people, especially the elderly. Providing a little piece of mind has not only been good for business, but also very fulfilling on a personal level.
Q. What type of market do you expect from this product?
A. The market for prescription medication in the U.S. alone is approximately 3.2 billion prescriptions a year. We estimate that 2.5 billion go out in bottles as opposed to ointments or drops, etc. So, the size of the market in the U.S. alone is staggering. Our target end users are people with visual disabilities and the elderly, as well as people whose first language isn't English. For example, the U.S. Army is distributing them to children in Afghanistan for humanitarian purposes. The bottles can be recorded in their local dialect which helps them to comply with the medication instructions. Compliance to prescription medication instructions is a huge problem in the U.S. as well. Not only does our bottle verbally inform people which medication is inside but it also reminds them about the various warnings that many medications come with, such as not to drive a car or take with alcohol. And then finally, it also can inform the end user when to discontinue the use of the medication or when to get it refilled. The pharmacists love the refill reminder. It means more business for them.
Q. What other types of products do you expect to cover to expand this technology?
A. We're going to focus on this bottle for some time. We do see several enhancements which can benefit our end users. A counter on the lid to remind people if they have taken the medication on a specific day or not is often requested. We find that people do remember to take their medication. They just can't always remember if they've taken it that day. We also see a verbal "talking" reminder at predetermined hours which reminds the person to take the medication at a certain time, and we can tie that into an automated phone call which plays a TTS reminder message to the end user. Beyond the Talking Pill Bottle we do see markets for talking products to go along with gifts and flowers. The ability to personalize a gift, gift card or flowers is very appealing to a lot of people.
Q. Tell us about Wizzard's SDKs and how they help developers with deploying speech.
A. Our core business is helping other businesses incorporate TTS and ASR into their applications. The SDKs, combined with the services we offer our customers, make it very easy for them to incorporate speech into their product or service. Most companies are not experienced with speech programming, and Wizzard's products and services allow them to bring their products to market faster and more cost effectively than if they were to start from scratch. And you should see all the different products our customers are building lately, from talking ATM machines, talking flight simulators, talking information broadcasts to software applications that can drastically reduce the time it takes to fill in medical forms using speech recognition. At any given time, we have approximately 100 customers using our products and services to incorporate speech into their products. Not only is this good for Wizzard's business, but lately it's become a lot of fun seeing all of these really interesting products being developed.
Q. How does your partnerships with IBM and ATandT work?
A. Our relationships with IBM and ATandT have effectively positioned Wizzard as the go-between for businesses wanting to incorporate speech into their products and the two very best technologies on the market in ATandT's Natural Voices as well as IBM's ViaVoice. When a potential customer is seeking out a speech solution, at some point in their search, in most cases, they arrive at either ATandT or IBM's Web site. Those potential customers are immediately sent to Wizzard for help. We take the time to learn about their needs and advise them on the best technology from our partners and approach for implementation. Once their product or service is effectively using speech, they then pay us a royalty for the use of IBM's ViaVoice or ATandT's Natural Voices which, of course, we share with the respective partner. I believe it's a win-win-win, if that is even a phrase. The customer gets expert help covering all areas of speech technology, support and integration; Wizzard gets a steady flow of customers; and IBM and ATandT generate revenues for their technology while only having to provide support and upgrades to Wizzard.
Q. Are there any vertical markets that you focus on and why?
A. We have identified several vertical markets as a result of all the leads we receive from our partners. We get the opportunity to see how businesses are thinking about using speech, long before their products hit the market. However, at this time we have no interest in competing with any of our customers. We'd rather continue to support and provide leads to our customers and resellers and allow them to focus on the vertical market for which they have expertise. I believe our industry needs more non-vertical oriented companies like Wizzard at this infancy stage in order to create long-lasting, trustful relationships with vertical vendors and really start getting speech technology out to the masses. Having said that, the Talking Pill Bottle is our first entry into a vertical market and probably won't be our last.
Q. Any last thoughts?
A. The main thought going around here at Wizzard is that we're finally seeing bigger companies, with bigger ideas and bigger budgets, taking a serious look at how speech technologies can improve their business or products. After years of seeing speech companies struggle to find business, we believe we're finally at the point where the technology has matured and businesses are seeing the productivity gains and product differentiation possibilities that speech can offer. We're obviously very excited and I believe it's with good reason.