Microsoft News & Reviews

Winners of the Microsoft® Speech Server Partner Spotlight Awards were awarded at the Microsoft Speech Server Partner Summit in Seattle. 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.
(May 16, 2006)

Microsoft has announced availability of the beta version of Microsoft Speech Server 2007, which is scheduled to be released late this year. Beginning today, beta testers will have the opportunity to preview and provide comment on the release. Microsoft Speech Server 2007 is the company’s next-generation speech and telephony platform. Its purpose is to help companies achieve two goals that might seem to be at odds: reduce costs and improve customer service.
(May 8, 2006)

Microsoft Corp. recently announced the availability of the Microsoft® Speech Server 2007 beta and a new set of features to make it easier for companies to develop and manage well-designed voice response and touch-tone applications to address their callers’ needs and improve customer satisfaction. Scheduled for release in fall 2006, Speech Server 2007 is Microsoft’s next-generation speech and telephony platform to help contact centers and businesses meet the challenge of reducing costs while improving automated customer service over the telephone.
(May 8, 2006)

Microsoft Corp. announced the road map and first set of features of its upcoming release of Microsoft® Speech Server 2007. Beginning in May, beta testers will have the opportunity to preview and provide feedback on Speech Server 2007, which is planned for release in late 2006. Speech Server 2007 is Microsoft’s next-generation speech and telephony platform to help contact centers and businesses meet the challenge of reducing costs while improving automated customer service over the telephone.
(April 5, 2006)

At SpeechTEK West convention in San Francisco, Microsoft Corp. highlighted the recent successes of its software partners in bringing to market a diverse set of packaged speech applications built on Microsoft® Speech Server. The more than 20 packaged speech applications that have been certified by Microsoft to date demonstrate how companies across all industries can utilize the flexible Speech Server platform to deploy the next generation of IVR solutions.
(January 31, 2006)

Microsoft recently announced the creation of the Unified Communications Group (UCG) to recognize the technology synergies between the Exchange, Live Communications Server and Speech Server platforms. This group will expedite the delivery of a coherent and integrated business communications portfolio to enterprise (one that spans email, voice mail (Unified Messaging), instant messaging, web conferencing, integrated audio conferencing, interactive voice-response and important new VoIP scenarios.
(January 30, 2006)

Microsoft® Speech Server 2004 R2 was named a 2005 Innovation Award winner from Customer Interaction Solutions magazine by Technology Marketing Corp.’s (TMC’s) TMC Labs division. Speech Server received the TMC Labs Innovation Award based upon the uniqueness and innovation the platform presents to the call center industry. The award-winning Speech Server platform provides a flexible, integrated solution that can be maintained with a toolset familiar to millions of developers worldwide, enabling companies to meet the changing demands of providing high-quality customer care.
(December 19, 2005)

In a commoditizing market in which global banks are offering sophisticated suites of products and services, community banks and credit unions are differentiating themselves by building their technology infrastructures with Microsoft® technology solutions, Microsoft announced at the Bank Administration Institute (BAI) Retail Delivery Conference & Expo.
(November 15, 2005)

Microsoft Corp. has acquired certain intellectual property assets from Unveil Technologies Inc., a leading developer of enterprise call center technology and the award-winning Unveil Conversation Suite. With this acquisition, Microsoft will be able to incorporate the Adaptive Learning and Conversation Assist components of the Unveil Conversation Suite into future versions of Microsoft® Speech Server, supporting the company’s continued commitment to deliver the most flexible and integrated speech platform at the lowest total cost of ownership.
(October 6, 2005)

At the annual SpeechTEK Exposition and Educational Conference in New York, Microsoft Corp. announced that multiple companies have chosen Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) as their platform of choice for building and deploying speech-enabled enterprise solutions, signifying growing adoption and demand by enterprise companies for a lower-cost scalable speech solution built on .NET Framework- and Windows-based infrastructure.
(August 2, 2005)

Microsoft announces the release of Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) 2004 R2. Enterprise customers now have the ability to offer language support for U.S. Spanish and Canadian French at no additional cost. MSS R2 also offers the ability to deploy speech server in an all-in-one server configuration giving customers greater flexibility when choosing their deployment option.
(May 23, 2005)

With the release of Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) 2004 R2, Microsoft Corp. takes another step forward in its strategy to enable enterprises of all sizes to better serve existing customer needs, drive operational efficiencies, and create the next generation of customer service applications.

Microsoft Corp. highlighted the recent successes of its customers and partners as a demonstration of its ability to bring speech technology to the mainstream and to enhance business value for customers through Microsoft Speech Server 2004. Large enterprise customers have selected Microsoft Speech Server 2004 as their platform of choice to deploy large-scale (more than 1,000 ports), cost-effective speech solutions to their customers.
(February 21, 2005)

At the National Retail Federation Annual Convention and EXPO in New York City, Microsoft Corp. demonstrated the investments it has made over the past year to bring the benefits of speech technologies to the world's retail organizations. With Microsoft Speech Server 2004, retailers can leverage existing IT investments to solve real-world business problems in the area of customer-facing experience and internal operations — whether creating a seamless and personalized shopping experience or improving business operations such as seamless connections to suppliers, enhanced customer service offerings, or in-store point of sale systems.
(January, 17, 2005)

Through its strategic alliance with Microsoft, Intervoice, Inc. (Nasdaq: INTV), the world leader in converged voice and data solutions, announced that GTECH Holdings Corporation (NYSE:GTK), a billion dollar lottery industry leader, selected Intervoice to deliver speech-enabled applications within its customer service offering. With a 70% share of the world's online lottery business, GTECH is a full service technology partner catering to all of the systems and support needs of online lottery operators worldwide.
(October 4, 2004)

Microsoft Corp. took another step forward in its strategy to make the business value of speech technology more broadly available to mainstream enterprise companies as Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates launched Microsoft® Speech Server 2004 at the co-located AVIOS~SpeechTEK Spring 2004, Microsoft Mobile Developer Conference (DevCon) 2004 and Fawcette Technical Publications' VSLive! San Francisco 2004 events.
(February 24, 2004)

In his keynote address at the co-located Microsoft® Mobile Developer Conference (DevCon) 2004, Fawcette Technical Publication's VSLive! San Francisco 2004 and AVIOS~SpeechTEK Spring 2004, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates expanded on the company's vision for Seamless Computing for developers, discussing a wave of technologies that empower developers to build connected, information-driven applications, and rich interfaces and experiences.
(February 24, 2004)

The rapid adoption and interest in Microsoft® Speech Server continues with the addition of new industry partners to the Microsoft Speech Partner Program.
(February 19, 2004)

In his keynote, Bill Gates will discuss news around developer and platform innovations including Visual Studio "Whidbey", Microsoft Speech Server, and wireless application development for Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone.
(February 2, 2004)

At the ninth annual SpeechTEK exposition and conference, Microsoft Corp. unveiled its Joint Development Program (JDP) customers and partners, which are developing and deploying applications built with the Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK) on the Microsoft® Speech Server, part of the Windows Server System® family of products.
(October 1, 2003)

Microsoft Corp. announced several key milestones for bringing speech technology to the mainstream including the first public beta release of the highly anticipated Microsoft® Speech Server, a Windows Server System®, and the beta 3 release of the Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK).
(July 9, 2003)

Microsoft Corp. introduced the Speech Partner Program (SPP), designed to provide additional revenue and profit opportunities for new and existing partners interested in developing, deploying and reselling enterprise-grade speech technology solutions based on Microsoft® technologies.
(July 9, 2003)

Momentum and market adoption of the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification continues as Microsoft Corp. announced the release of two sample applications designed to educate and demonstrate how Web developers can more easily add SALT-based speech technologies into Web applications.
(April 1, 2003)

Microsoft Corp. announced a series of developments related to its .NET Speech family of products, putting the company a step closer to its goal of making speech technology mainstream in the enterprise and providing a solution that makes it faster, easier and more economical for enterprises to build and deploy speech-enabled applications. Microsoft announced the availability of the beta 2 release of the Microsoft® .NET Speech Software Development Kit (SDK), as well as a technical preview of the Microsoft .NET Speech platform and a newly established Joint Development Program (JDP).
(October 30, 2002)

At the Intel® Communications Summit 2002, Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. announced that the two companies are developing enabling technologies and a reference design for the deployment of speech-enabled Web solutions in the enterprise based on the Speech Applications Language Tags (SALT) specification. The scope of the technical collaboration and reference design will include the Microsoft® .NET Speech platform along with standards-based Intel communications building blocks which include Intel® Architecture servers, Intel® NetStructure (TM) communications boards and Intel telephony call management interface software.
(October 14, 2002)

Microsoft Corp. and Intervoice Inc., the world leader in converged voice and data solutions, announced a strategic alliance that will make open, standards-based speech solutions more accessible to Web developers and enterprise customers. Seeking to make speech technology mainstream, the two companies will engage in sales, marketing and technology development for the upcoming Microsoft® .NET Speech platform, a Speech Application Language Tags (SALT)-based solution that will make it faster, easier and more economical for customers to develop and deploy large-scale enterprise telephony and multimodal speech-enabled applications, such as interactive voice response (IVR), customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.
(October 7, 2002)

At the AVIOS Speech Expo, Microsoft Corp. announced the beta release of the Microsoft® .NET Speech Software Development Kit (SDK), the industry's first Web developer tool and the industry's first product deployment based on the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification. The SDK seamlessly integrates into the Visual Studio® .NET development environment and will make it faster and easier for Web developers to incorporate speech functionality into Web applications and create new business opportunities by leveraging their existing Web development knowledge and skills.
(May 7, 2002)

Press release profiles Microsoft participation in several standards initiatives-including the SALT Forum, which is committed to developing a royalty-free, platform-independent standard for multimodal and telephony-enabled applications and services.
(March 5, 2002)

Microsoft demonstrates three new technologies-the Tablet PC, Web-based speech applications, and MSN Money Professional-at the DEMO 2002 conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
(February 11, 2002)

Microsoft and SpeechWorks International announce a strategic alliance aimed at fostering widespread use of speech technologies in the development of enterprise applications.
(February 4, 2002)

New releases from Microsoft in 2002 will include a beta version of the Microsoft Speech Technologies for .NET software development kit (SDK), and a beta version of a Microsoft server for enabling speech applications.
(December 18, 2001)

Cisco, Comverse, Intel, Microsoft, Philips, and SpeechWorks found the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) Forum. The mission of the SALT Forum is to develop a royalty-free, platform-independent standard for multimodal and telephony-enabled applications and services.
(October 15, 2001)

Latest version of the Speech SDK for Windows® enables developers to create speech-enabled applications using Microsoft Visual Basic®, JScript®, and other development systems that use Automation. This release also includes improved speech recognition and text-to-speech engines. To learn more or download the SDK, see the Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1 area of this site.
(August 21, 2001)

The new release of Office features advanced speech recognition capabilities that enable users to dictate memos and e-mails, as well as control menus and input commands verbally.
(April 18, 2001)