Features & Benefits

Learn about Microsoft Speech Server (MSS), a flexible and integrated speech platform that delivers the business value of speech technologies at the lowest total cost of ownership.

Overview

A speech platform, MSS contains all the server components for deploying telephony (voice-only) and multimodal (voice/visual) applications. MSS combines Web technologies, speech-processing services, and telephony capabilities into a single system.

MSS runs on the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system and performs speech recognition and speech synthesis for applications that can be accessed by telephone, cell phone, Pocket PC, Tablet PC and other devices. MSS takes advantage of the improved architecture and new security-aware features of Windows Server 2003 and includes additional features to protect and defend your systems, resources, and users from potential security threats. For more information, see the Microsoft Speech Server Web site.

Cost-Effective Development
Used in conjunction with the Microsoft Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK), MSS enables enterprises to cost-effectively deploy speech applications that can improve employee productivity, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and create new revenue opportunities. Enterprises can use MSS with SASDK to extend existing or new Web applications, making them accessible by speech. As a result, enterprises can merge their Web and voice infrastructure to create unified applications with both speech and visual access.

Integration through Industry Standards
For telephony applications, MSS includes functionality for integrating into an enterprise telephony infrastructure. Furthermore, MSS builds on the work of the open industry standard, the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification, which extends existing Web markup languages by adding speech recognition and prompt functionality to Web applications.

Benefits

Best Economics: Delivers the Lowest Total Cost of Ownership for Speech Deployments

Benefit

Description

Faster, More Cost-effective Development

•	MSS reduces the time, cost, and effort it takes to build and deploy telephony (voice-only) and multimodal (voice/visual) applications, built with the SASDK that offers seamless integration with the Visual Studio.net development environment.
•	Native support for open Web W3C standards, such as XML and HTML, reduces developer training costs and ramp-up time.
•	Microsoft and third-party speech controls, solution components, and applications provide cost-effective, prebuilt, reusable building blocks for enterprise solutions.
•	Built-in support for the open industry standard, SALT, with its familiar Web programming paradigm, gives you the power to create rich speech applications in less time.

Efficient Manageability

•	Innovative and automated management features in MSS, coupled with the management tools of Windows Server 2003, lead to IT efficiencies that reduce the overall costs to deploy, maintain, and manage speech solutions.

Flexible to Meet Existing and Future Business Needs

Benefit

Description

Telephony and Multimodal Functionality

•	The SALT-based MSS platform and tools let you rapidly build both telephony and multimodal applications.

Highly Scalable

•	This cost-effective, scalable solution can grow with your business, from single server configurations to distributed server farm topologies.

Broad Availability of Choices Supported by Industry Standards

•	Native support for the open industry standard, SALT, provides broad availability of speech tools, hardware, and vendors.
•	The MSS open architecture supports the integration of third party SAPI-based speech recognition engines.

More Development and Partner Solutions Options

•	Support for open Web standards and familiar Web programming models means you can deploy and maintain voice-only solutions using in-house Web development staff.
•	A large pool of existing Web developers provides many options for application development by third parties.
•	A broad base of partners gives you more options when choosing Web and telephony application developers or solution providers.

Highly Integrated and Interoperable with Existing Enterprise Technology Infrastructure

Benefit

Description

Integrated Solution

•	MSS combines fully integrated telephony capabilities, speech recognition, and text-to-speech engines for deploying both full-featured voice-only and multimodal applications.
•	Support for both touch-tone (DTMF) and speech-enabled applications.

Convergence of Existing Voice and Data Assets

•	MSS enables the convergence of existing telephony and Web infrastructures to support unified speech and telephony applications.

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