Working the Spoken Word : Unified Communications

What a year for speech recognition at Microsoft

Stephen Potter — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:45:00 GMT

Yeah, yeah, the year in review, what a crushingly unoriginal idea for a post. But wait - this is worth it. 2007 was a huge year for speech recognition products at Microsoft. I think we'll look back on it as a real turning point. Here's how it shaped up.

(Going into the year, Exchange Server 2007 had just shipped with Unified Messaging, including Outlook Voice Access that gives you access over the phone to email, calendar and other useful features. It's a significant integration of speech technology into the heart of a high-volume server product. Huge posters had been up on campus for months, and inside Exchange, they called it 'the sizzle on the steak'.

Meanwhile the teams in Windows, Speech Server, automotive and core technology are hard at work... )

January 2007

Windows Vista ships with Windows Speech Recognition built into the operating system in eight different languages. Now this is a significant investment in the voice user interface as a means of commanding and dictation for desktop users. The entire desktop is speech-enabled under the 'say what you see' metaphor; correction and selection are easy; and the system adapts to your voice and your typical word usage as time goes on. Since the release of WSR, many media reviews have been overwhelmingly positive - check out Rob Chambers' blog (one of the driving forces behind speech in Vista) for links and discussions.

March 2007

Microsoft announces intent to acquire Tellme Networks. Steve Ballmer says it all:

“Speech is universal, simple and holds incredible promise as a key interface for computing. Tellme brings to Microsoft the talent, technology and proven experience in speech that will enable us to deliver a new wave of products and revolutionize human-computer interaction.”

(Incidentally, CNET has a nice inside look at the discussions in Building 34 on Superbowl day between Steve Ballmer and Mike McCue, Tellme CEO, that led up to the deal.)

Also in March - Microsoft Response Point is launched out of Microsoft Research. Response Point is a new way for small business to manage their phone systems - inexpensive, easy to set up and easy to use. All thanks to VoIP and the speech technology that underlies the user interface.

May 2007

The acquisition of TellMe closes.

September 2007

In the mobile space, Tellme announces a deal with Sprint to incorporate Tellme's voice search technology with Live Search into certain phones.

Meanwhile, the first Ford cars hit the market in the USA with Sync - hands-free speech technology for voice dialing, messaging and media control within the car.

October 2007

Office Communications Server 2007 is released as the flagship of Microsoft's Unified Communications strategy. Bundled with OCS 2007 is the latest version of Microsoft Speech Server - now called Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server (oh yes). It's a significant upgrade from Speech Server 2004, including native VoIP support, graphical dialog editing, conversational grammars, and rich data mining and tuning tools.

And - what a month - Live Search for Windows Mobile goes live with speech recognition. The speech team blog has more details of the kinds of searches possible. And you don't even need a mobile phone to make free 411 calls using the Live Search speech technology. Insider details from Long Zheng's interview with Program Manager Oliver Scholz.

So what's to come in 2008?

Let me say only that we have not been sitting around (well, actually, that's not quite true, I have been sitting around for the last month, since I was out on paternity leave. Only it wasn't really sitting around, there was a lot to do in terms of coping with the newborn's data streams and all that, but I wasn't building software, that's what I meant, now let me rescue my point) - all the teams behind these releases have been planning and executing on the next waves since even before the dates above, so huge momentum has already built in a number of areas, old and new, and we'll start to see evidence of this as the year progresses.

And - did I mention that we're hiring in a number of speech technology-related areas? Please contact me for details if you're interested.

Investing in voice

Stephen Potter — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:00:00 GMT

Big time! This kind of brainpower and expertise, on this kind of scale... the future is here. Welcome, Tellme!

Getting real about unified communications

Stephen Potter — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 03:32:00 GMT

As planning for the next wave of speech server technologies gets underway, I'll try to post more on the broader context of Unified Communications. I'd love to get your feedback on the communication scenarios, applications or features that you'd like to develop or use.

Kyle defines the field nicely in kicking off his blog Developing for Unified Communications:

There are a lot of ingredients in this soup. VoIP, Video, IM, Presence, Identity, Federation, Text to Speech, Speech to Text, Phones, Soft Phones, Applications, Services, IVR to name but a few. I don’t have the answers as to how all this will shake out over time. We are just at the beginning of the road and where this road will lead is open to a lot of possibilities and obstacles.

Main point - it's wide open. We think there are some very cool integrations visible at this point, but it feels like just a fraction of the potential. Have you ever been limited or frustrated by a device or modality? For example, not being able to answer a phone call while you're in a meeting, wanting to point at something during a telephone conference or live meeting, or simply interact with a person or a system by text rather than voice, or vice versa, or both? This kind of thing is a result of the decoupled nature of today's devices and modes. This kind of thing, and many more like it, could be fixed by apps on a more unified communications platform.

All ideas and comments welcome. And contact me offline if you prefer.

Speech in Office Communications Server - the word on the street

Stephen Potter — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:51:00 GMT

Now that the dust has settled on the announcement to integrate speech services into Office Communications Server, here are some choice words from the street:

Avery Glasser, Opus Research: "This is an ecosystem changing event"
Ian Rae, Silent Software: "Communication is becoming a key part of every organization. Communication across devices. Synchronous and ayschronous communication. Features such as: presence, IM, VoIP, video, Find-Me, Follow-Me, and ad-hoc conferencing. Think EMail++. For speech rec to be bundled into such a strategic product is a huge win."
Terry Gold, Gold Systems: "...even [for] most of Microsoft’s competitors, this is going to be good for business because it is going to extend speech recognition throughout the enterprise. The world of communications in general is going to grow and change in fundamental ways, and a lot of people will benefit from Microsoft’s massive investment in this world. " (also check out Terry's post for a nerve-wracking, blow-by-blow insider view of the demo at SpeechTek, and Rob's too)
Marshall Harrison, developer of MSS apps: "It will give us the ability to do IM, have presence awareness; speech enable audio and video conferencing and better voice and call management. I'm really stoked about the communications possibilities that this will open up."

And if I may put my marketing hat on for a moment (what? it's already on? oh. thanks) - I think there's a massive role for speech recognition services in today's communications landscape. We're only just beginning to get a sense of it. And by not only integrating automatic speech recognition capabilities into the core of the communications stack but also investing significantly in tools and APIs for developers to make the most of it - I think we've got a platform here that will see in a whole new wave of speech recognition apps.

More details of the MSS/OCS integration:

Outlook Voice Access demo

Stephen Potter — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 01:20:00 GMT

With Exchange Server 2007, currently in Beta, the ordinary telephone suddenly becomes an alternative to desktop Outlook. You can access and manipulate your email, calendar, contacts and other mailbox items over the phone, thanks to built-in speech recognition technology.

Here's a demo (110Kb or 300Kb). See also the live demo at the People Ready launch in New York earlier this year.

(Via the Exchange Team blog You had me at EHLO.)

Exchange 12 Unified Messaging demo

Stephen Potter — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 02:47:00 GMT

Steve Ballmer talked to a business audience in New York yesterday about Microsoft's People Ready vision for empowering people within business. He included a section of live demos, including voice access to your email and calendar over the phone. As Chris Capossela, VP of the Microsoft Business Division says in the session:

A lot of us think about being connected to the workplace when we're on the road using some of the more sophisticated PDAs and Windows Mobile devices. We also think it's important to be connected just using a very basic phone, no matter where you may be.

This is part of Microsoft's broader vision of Unified Communications and it's in this context that Chris demos some of the features that are available by phone with Exchange 12. Move to ~~23:00~~ 19:00 (thanks Ryan) in the video to get straight to the speech recognition demo.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the voice UI.

From intelligent interfaces to unified communications

Stephen Potter — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 05:19:00 GMT

Speech Server is now a part of Anoop Gupta's new Unified Communications Group. There's a Q&A with Anoop here about the new group and its directions (which also brings the Exchange and Real Time Communications teams together) with his thoughts on how unifying our different communication technologies has exciting possibilities for businesses and information workers.

In my 6 years at Microsoft I've seen a few re-organizations above my head at a divisional level, but I've basically worked on the same product - Microsoft Speech Server - the whole time. So Speech Server was conceived within the Intelligent Interface Technologies group, entered the world under the Natural Interactive Services Division, and is now maturing in the Unified Communications Group.

So what changed? Well, I think the group names are a subtle reflection of focus. Intelligent Interface Technologies - sounds cool (best title of the lot to have on your business card) but the focus is coldly and proudly on the technology. Natural Interactive Services - yes, a little warmer, moving towards the user with the interaction angle and the naturalness. Now Unified Communications - that's a broader direction, and the mandate for speech services within the context of user-centric communications is pretty clear. I see it as a concrete step towards building the "digital lifestyle" for information workers in which Bill Gates recently placed our work on speech recognition technologies.

Don't get me wrong, Speech Server is still very much about intelligent interfaces and natural interactive services (and as Anoop points out, the re-organization will have no immediate impact on Speech Server 2007 which is planned to release later this year). In fact, this shift of focus at a divisional level to a unified framework of user communications should make it easier to align technologies to deliver more intelligent, more natural and more interactive ways to communicate with business systems and with each other.