Philips Electronics NV has introduced its new speech recognition technology, SpeechMania, designed to eliminate the need for manned switchboards and helpdesks. The Dutch electronics giant is targeting the entertainment, ticket booking, telephone banking and helpdesk markets. The technology is available on a global basis, in versions of UK English, US English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. According to Philips spokesperson Chris Ford, each language edition has been programmed to recognize regional dialect, and removes the need for a telephonist to answer customer query calls. SpeechMania is to be sold via partners, who will then develop personalized applications according to the particular company’s needs. The SpeechAttendant aspect of SpeechMania is designed to enable organizations to have an electronic switchboard, which will direct calls and answer queries. The SpeechMania system has been up and running at several sites in the US and in Europe in trials for the past 18 months. Having put a stop to the proposed sale of part of its services company Origin BV to Price Waterhouse (CI No 3,365), Philips is to use Origin as the global distributor for the new technology. Pricing for SpeechMania is dependent on the complexity of the application, and the size of the vocabulary it needs to hold. Philips will also officially unveil its new personal computer-based speech recognition technology, FreeSpeech 98 (CI No 3,422) at PC Expo, which starts today in New York.
