REDMOND, Wash. — May 16, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the winners of the Microsoft® Speech Server Partner Spotlight Awards. The winners were recognized for their achievements in developing customer-friendly and forward-thinking speech and telephony applications that enrich how speech is utilized in companies of all sizes. The winners were announced at the Microsoft Speech Server Partner Summit happening this week in Seattle.
“We’re pleased to announce these winners who have found unique ways to utilize the flexibility of the Speech Server platform,” said Clint Patterson, director of product management for Microsoft Speech Server at Microsoft. “Our partners play an instrumental role in our efforts to make speech affordable and available to companies of all sizes. The variety and breadth of the high-quality nominations we received from our partners demonstrates how speech can effectively solve some of the most vexing challenges that companies are facing today.”
The Speech Server Partner Spotlight Awards are open to any Microsoft Speech Server partner or customer. Each nominee submitted a demo of the application along with a solution profile and references. The award winners were selected by independent judges Daniel Hong, analyst for Datamonitor, and John Kelly, editor in chief and publisher of Speech Technology Magazine. Winners were selected based on the defined criteria for each category that would contribute to making automated speech and telephony applications useful for people and provide cost savings for companies.
These are the winners of the first Speech Server Spotlight Awards:
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Best Innovation Winner: Voice Internet Inc.
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Customer Impact Winner: Woodforest National Bank
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Best Mobile Solution Winner: Direct 2 Mobile Marketing Inc.
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Best Outbound Solution: Gold Systems
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Best Line of Business Solution: bridgeSpeak
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Best Industry Solution: Versay Solutions
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Best Tool/Utility Solution: Cantata Technology Inc.
The award winners are part of Speech Server’s expanding partner ecosystem, which today includes more than 70 industry companies. This group includes systems integrators, solution providers, application developers and independent software vendors that have built more than 20 Microsoft Certified applications for Speech Server. More information about becoming a Microsoft Speech Server partner is available at http://www.microsoft.com/speech.
About Microsoft Speech Server
Microsoft Speech Server is Microsoft’s interactive voice response (IVR) platform and provides the tools, run-time environment, and core speech and telephony services needed for speech-enabled telephony applications on a single, integrated platform. Microsoft Speech Server reduces the complexity and cost of building, deploying and maintaining dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF) and speech-enabled applications for customer self-service and outbound notification. Contact centers and businesses use the award-winning platform to automate customer self-service calls, reduce call-center agent time, improve customer satisfaction, add speech capabilities to line-of-business applications and provide access to existing applications from any telephone. Speech Server also enables developers to use the powerful Visual Studio® 2005 development environment to cost-effectively build and maintain high-quality DTMF and speech-enabled IVR applications. More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/speech.
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