Digium Talks Up Asterisk Speech Recognition

digium-asterisk-open-source-ip-pbx-speech-recognition

First, forget everything you know about speech recognition. Sure, the technology suffered a few black eyes nearly a decade ago, when the CEO of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (L&H) was arrested on fraud charges. And anyone who used early speech recognition tools knows the Soft Wear Often Didn’t Wok.

Still, there’s been progress on multiple fronts. Bill Gates since 1997 has been predicting that speech recognition would become an everyday user interface on PCs. Gates said the move to speech user interfaces would require about a decade of work. The VAR Guy believes Gates wasn’t that far off the mark. (As if Mr. Gates cares about or resident blogger’s opinion…)

These days, we’re all used to speech recognition applications, especially when it comes to in-car applications, smart phones and call center applications. And software packages like Dragon Naturally Speaking have gained critical mass.

Dialing Asterisk

Now, for the real point of this blog: Improved speech recognition applications for Asterisk, the fast-growing open source IP PBX. In recent months, Digium has been rapidly expanding its channel partner network. Now, that partner network will have access to Incendonet’s speech recognition software.

According to Incendonet, the company’s:

Sounds wonderful. But does it work? Frankly, The VAR Guy has to make a few phone calls to learn more about Incendonet’s installed base, channel partner network and company size. But Incendonet has announced relationships with Adtran and ShoreTel — two well-known providers of VoIP and IP phone systems.

The VAR Guy will dig for more information at Astricon, an Asterisk conference scheduled for October 13-15 in Arizona.

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