Scansoft Releases SpeechAttendant 8.1 and OpenSpeech Attendant

Products and Partnerships

 

PEABODY, Mass., - ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), has made available the latest release of SpeechAttendant® 8.1 which features improved support for large name directories and additional system administration functionality. According to Scansoft, SpeechAttendant has been implemented in more than 1,000 installations worldwide and is handling over one-half billion calls annually.  The company also introduced the availability of OpenSpeech™ Attendant 1.0, a standards-based auto-attendant solution. 

 

SpeechAttendant 8.1 incorporates OpenSpeech™ Recognizer software to discriminate between background noise and speech and increase accuracy rates for wireless, hands-free and noisy environments.  It also features SpeechWorks' patented LEARN™ capability that automatically adapts based on caller usage.

 

SpeechAttendant 8.1 has enhanced performance for large directories, containing more than 100,000 names, with improved disambiguation techniques to offer the same, high quality caller experience found with smaller directories containing fewer than 1,000 names. 

 

SpeechAttendant 8.1 includes several added features to improve system performance and provide a satisfying caller experience without significant support from the system administrator.  It includes a nicknames template that automatically associates common nicknames to proper names, such as adding -- />Bob, Bobby, Rob to Robert -- eliminating manual entries by the system administrator.  It also provides a large department acronyms template that automatically imports department acronyms present in directory source files and converts them into formats that can be used by text-to-speech and speech recognition engines, such as converting "mktg" to "marketing" or "svcs" to "services."  SpeechAttendant also now supports the HL7 protocol required by healthcare providers and hospitals to speech-enable access to patient rooms without relying on operators and touch-tone systems.  In addition, SpeechAttendant 8.1 adds new system performance reports to its extensive list of reports.

 

SpeechAttendant 8.1 further enhances its redundancy and multi-site capabilities by allowing customers to accommodate for robust real-time redundancy and load-balancing.