VoiceObjects Technology to Be Integrated in SAP NetWeaver(R)

VoiceObjects, the phone application server company, today announced that SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) will be integrating VoiceObjects´ phone application server technology in SAP NetWeaver®. The technology will enable easy input and access to SAP® applications via the telephone. The arrangement is made possible by a software license and distribution agreement recently signed by the companies. More information about VoiceObjects´ phone application server technology and products may be found at www.voiceobjects.com.

The VoiceObjects phone application server technology that will be included in SAP NetWeaver will enable the easy creation and deployment of voice-driven applications that work with SAP applications. Voice-enabled applications use speech recognition to receive data and use computer-generated speech (i.e., text-to-speech) or audio recordings to deliver a response. For example, a voice-driven application could enable orders to be placed and tracked over the telephone by customers or company employees.

The VoiceObjects phone application server technology enables voice-driven applications to be deployed without modification to backend SAP applications or the creation of new middleware. The technology also includes media platform drivers that link all the most common third-party IVR systems, including those from Avaya, Genesys, and Nortel, to SAP applications.

"SAP´s integration of VoiceObjects´ phone application server technology into NetWeaver introduces a new element to a wider enterprise software audience," said Daniel Hong, lead analyst, Datamonitor. "This arrangement enables easy deployment and maintenance of phone-accessible SAP applications in an enterprise-class fashion that is consistent with best practices in IT. Business process analysts, rather than technical staff, will be able to manage these applications, which is a tremendous benefit. As other enterprise software application vendors follow suit, the use of the phone as a channel to enterprise applications should increase dramatically."

"SAP´s selection of our phone application server technology is a strong endorsement of the server-based approach to deploying and managing voice-driven applications," said Beatriz Infante, president and chief executive officer, VoiceObjects. "Soon, every sophisticated voice-driven application will be deployed on a phone application server."

What is a Phone Application Server?

A phone application server is software that enables carrier-grade deployment and management of personalized, over-the-phone self-service applications. Generally, full-featured phone application servers have the following four capabilities:

-- The ability to dynamically generate VoiceXML to create personalized dialogs with each caller at call-time, using information in an organization´s CRM or other databases. In customer service applications, the resulting caller-specific conversations provide opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell and higher rates of customer satisfaction and service adoption.

-- An application execution environment that supports remote management and monitoring of multimodal applications, online application maintenance for instant changes or rollbacks, and guaranteed high availability.

-- Web services support for easy integration between an organization´s phone-based self-service assets and its CRM, ERP, and other IT assets in service-oriented architecture (SOA) environments, drastically reducing development time and cost.

-- Support for multimodal phone applications that may include voice, video, graphics and text interfaces, allowing user-friendly interactive applications that are unmatched in the phone-based self-service industry.