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Phonologies — Talking success


Imagine the ability to have your e-mail read out to you while on the move, or to access the latest news on different websites, or carry out stock trading transactions—all through voice activated commands and through any phone. This is no sci-fi concept but a reality made possible by speech recognition technology. It is estimated that by 2005, there will be 128 million users of speech-enabled applications. This is the market that a start-up formed by a trio from IIT Bombay (Dipankar Barman, Sachin Lamsoge and Rajkiran Talusani) is eyeing. And quite aptly, the company goes by the name Phonologies.

In today’s competitive scenario, businesses need to enhance their way of communication. This is where speech recognition technologies can make a difference. Instead of the traditional IVR-based system where callers have to wait and hear messages like “wait for the operator” or listen to long menus that are tough to remember for the average user, a system that is speech enabled allows companies to bring a natural flow of communication. For example, if a caller wants the EDP department, he/she can just say EDP and the line will be transferred to the EDP department.
Says Prashant Lamba, director, Phonologies, “Our mission is to develop and market high quality, low cost and scalable voice platforms, which can make information and services from enterprises, telecommunication networks and the Internet accessible over any telephone, anytime and from anywhere.” The company has already developed a voice browser christened ‘InterpreXer,’ which enables surfing of websites based on voice activated commands. This would also mean that a user can just pick up a telephone and read content on a speech-enabled website.

Also possible is routine call handling. For example, a call centre with the help of the technology from Phonologies can transfer all calls to an automated agent, which would recognise human voice and can handle or route calls accordingly. This effectively means that a call centre can cut down on human resources and reduce cost of operations. Sectors like banks can also use technology from Phonologies to enable their customers to access their accounts from any telephone using simple voice-enabled commands.

But the real trump card that Phonologies holds is not the fact that speech recognition technologies are hot, but it is the voice platform. Phonologies’ voice platform is based on open source standards and hence is compatible with multiple telephony platforms. This is a big plus over current proprietary systems, which cannot be easily integrated with other systems. The market is huge and the company is talking to call centre solution providers, players in the unified messaging space and IP telephony players. 

The company clearly knows its strengths and weaknesses. For instance, Phonologies knows that it can’t compete with the big guys globally without an effective distribution network. Hence, the strategy is to sell directly to system integrators. It is a win-win situation for both the system integrator (SI) and Phonologies. While the SI can increase its range of offerings with Phonologies’ solution, Phonologies can get its solution extended into companies through the SI’s contacts. But in India, the company is looking at offering its solutions directly.

One more approach that the company has deployed in its strategy is to be a part of technology groups or forums. This is an approach followed by many Israeli start-ups as it gives them the expertise to work with latest technology forums and be ready with a product or solution when a particular technology is declared as a standard. The company is already part of technology forums like VoXML and SALT (Speech Application Language Tags). With the advantage of India’s low cost of operations coupled with the strategy of an Israeli start-up, Phonologies could prove to be one of India’s biggest success stories in the times to come.

This article first appeared in Express Computer.

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