Support for Speech Solutions

SpeechWatch™ Unified Monitoring and Alarming for the Microsoft® Speech Server Environment

By Jeff Valliant, President and CEO, CYGCOM Integrated Technologies Inc.

The growth of e-business over the past five years has led to an explosion in the number of interactions that companies have with their customers. Enterprises must now plan for customer and employee interactions not only through a call center but through multiple other touch points including the Web, cell phones, e-mail, personal data assistants (PDAs), and other hand-held devices.

Speech-enabled applications are rapidly emerging as the user interface of choice for these new touch points. Customers can use interactive speech-enabled applications to gain access to information and to conduct transactions. Speech technology is lowering costs, improving customer satisfaction, and driving the development of applications that deliver innovative value-added services to a growing number of mobile customers. For these reasons, most Fortune 500 companies invested in some form of speech technology last year. According to traditional industry call center data, the cost of an average call to a call center ranges from $1 to $15. A speech-enabled application can reduce that to a cost that ranges from 10 cents to $1.

Software Support for Speech Solutions
Microsoft® is supporting the growth of speech technology with its recent introduction of Microsoft Speech Server 2004 (MSS), a low cost, open standards-based, integrated speech platform that makes it easy for businesses to create speech solutions.

Now CYGCOM Integrated Technologies Inc. has built SpeechWatch™ to make it easy for businesses to support and manage speech-enabled applications. SpeechWatch is the first effective monitoring & alarming support agent software product for MSS. An IT professional can use SpeechWatch to immediately determine the status and health of a distributed MSS speech-enabled solution in a reliable, fast, and repeatable way.

Utilizing industry leading data server technology provided by UXComm Inc., CYGCOM has built a telephony-specific web-based console. With SpeechWatch Console, you can instantly see problems from any IP connection and view detailed telephony hardware and software information that will help you solve those problems. In addition, you can connect SpeechWatch™ to CYGCOM's eSupport center to communicate problem information accurately and automatically.

Speech Platforms Require Specialized Support
When adding one or more speech-enabled applications to an IT data farm, IT managers need to also build in support for the speech servers. Speech-enabled applications run on open systems servers, so an IT manager might think that their existing data server support model is sufficient. However, speech-enabled applications depend on the integration of many telephony elements as well as the inter-connection to the telephone network. Because of all these dependencies, the support of speech-enabled applications goes beyond any existing data server support model.

The Power of SpeechWatch™ Console
With its fast and accurate integrated monitoring and alarming, SpeechWatch Console can help you reduce problem resolution times from days to minutes. You can:

Find the source of the problem instantly and accurately among the many layers of speech technology elements
Provide instant access to a knowledge base of information on telephony networks, call handling, call progress, and voice application processes

SpeechWatch Console offers full monitoring, alarm notification, and communication in one simple, easy-to-use, configurable, Web-based solution. To gather the information, you do not need to be in front of the server; you simply use Internet Explorer.

Key Benefits of SpeechWatch Console
Use SpeechWatch Console to protect your investment in your MSS infrastructure.

Collect Information Easily — Gather the configuration and software information easily even if you have minimal IT experience. IT professionals or less experienced end users can gather vital information for your service personnel.
Accelerate Support through Alarming — The SpeechWatch alarming feature tells you when a problem occurs and where it is occurring.
Reduce the Need for On-site Support — Current system settings and parameter values can be viewed and changed within SpeechWatch Console over the Web, so support personnel can easily verify that a system is configured correctly without having to send a technician to the site.
Process Hardware Warranty Returns Quickly and Efficiently — If you have pinpointed the issue as hardware related, all necessary information regarding serial numbers, software revisions, and so on for both the telephony and server products can be found within the SpeechWatch Console.
Empower End Users to Self Support — SpeechWatch is easy to use and has built-in Help. Your customers can click the Help tab to view FAQs, tips, the User Guide, and our combined support resources.

Learn More by Attending Our TechNet Webcast
To learn more about monitoring and alarming the telephony elements of an MSS environment, attend CYGCOM's one-hour TechNet Webcast for IT professionals on:

Wednesday, March 30th, 2005 at 11:30 A.M. Pacific (2:30 P.M. Eastern)

In this Webcast, you will:

Learn about the requirements for supporting an MSS platform.
Investigate several alarms that you could typically expect to encounter when supporting an MSS platform.
See a live demonstration of the SpeechWatch™ Monitoring and Alarming agent software to understand how easy it is to support an MSS environment.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032268839&Culture=en-US

For additional information, see CYGCOM's flash presentation at http://www.cygcom.com/flash/swe/index.php and take advantages of our FREE 30 day SpeechWatch trial.