'Reports'
The concept of unified communications (UC) is so overused it crowds out expansive thinking about the services that enterprises and wireless subscribers will use every day. The real deal is more accurately called “contextual communications,” and refers to intelligent handling and support of communications, interactions and transactions in the most appropriate manner based on analysis of each caller’s situation, including support of voice, text, graphics, video in real-time or asynchronously.
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May 19th, 2008
Dan Miller
Sales of voice biometric-based solutions took a trajectory that was bound to disappoint in 2007. While there continue to be solid sales of enterprise solutions (primarily password reset) across multiple verticals and business sizes, the breakthrough to mass market, customer-facing solutions has been elusive. In the coming years, stepped up security requirements, coupled with the growth of mobile data access and commerce, will propel demand for voice-based authentication solutions and services. Thus far the speed of adoption has been slowed by confusion over technical approaches and concerns about competition or compatibility with existing infrastructure and protocols.
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May 5th, 2008
Dan Miller
In a year that has the scent of recession, enterprise investment in Conversational Access Technologies (CAT) will be more closely linked to business objectives than ever. This puts a premium on packaging and marketing efforts that improve users’ experience by leveraging existing self-service resources and fostering strong relationships with integrators, developers and managed service providers.
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February 7th, 2008
Dan Miller
This is a transformative period for directory assistance (DA) service providers and callers alike. Call volumes are skewing toward mobile devices and competitive threats exist in the form of mobile Internet search, downloadable mapping applications and free DA alternatives. These competitive challenges raise strategic and tactical questions for mobile carriers and their service providers (about pricing and content) in the near term. The findings of a new Local Mobile Search consumer survey, sponsored by V-Enable, present a snapshot of mobile DA usage and of an industry very much in transition.
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February 4th, 2008
Greg Sterling
Mobile phones are poised to serve as a new, geo-targeted, highly social media that provide their owners with a means to find out the people, places and products of interest locally. In this document, Local Mobile Search provides planning assumptions to support business development and product definitions that are in line with reasonable revenue expectations.
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November 15th, 2007
Dan Miller
The market for voice biometrics-based authentication software is starting to mature. The technology has proven its efficacy and value as the basis of password reset applications for enterprise Help Desk, leading to tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenue. Yet the market will reach a positive inflection point as “customer-facing” deployments grow to support secure, phone-based access to financial services, e-government and electronic payments.
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July 23rd, 2007
Dan Miller
Unified communications (UC) is the merger of social software with enterprise IT, voice processing and call processing resources to support employee productivity and overall business objectives. Adoption has accelerated recently by successful packaging, marketing and go-to-market strategies primarily by three firms that have the greatest impact in setting the overall form, function and direction of enterprise computing and communications: Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. This report evaluates their unification efforts and those of major partners in call processing and contact center automation.
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July 19th, 2007
Dan Miller
This report explores the evolution and transition from “traditional” wireless directory assistance (DA), where the revenue is supplied by consumers on a pay-per-use basis, to a “free,” potentially ad-supported model we’re calling speech-enabled mobile search (SEMS). In 2006, wireless carriers, device makers, mobile subscribers and advertisers combined to spend more than $4 billion on resources that used spoken words to extend the ability to search onto mobile devices. By 2010, that dollar value will exceed $7.5 billion.
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May 10th, 2007
Dan Miller
With the sharp public eye on customer satisfaction, businesses need better and faster ways to tune phone self-service resources. A new generation of monitoring and reporting systems supports closer links to business intelligence and analytics. Determining suitability of new solutions hinges on compatibility with existing performance management resources, flexibility for accommodating multiple constituencies within the enterprise and out-of-the box capabilities, in terms of providing pre-formatted reports.
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April 18th, 2007
Dan Miller
Even with a potential FFIEC mandate for phone-based multifactor authentication on the horizon and the insidious cost of fraud continuing to rise, the question remains: Are voice biometrics ready for mass adoption? All directional indicators point to “Yes,” as does a growing roster of implementers and prospects. Speaker verification solutions have the potential to raise customer satisfaction while conforming to the strictures of “strong” authentication. A multitude of solutions providers are emerging to support two-factor authentication for telephone banking that remains cost-effective by leveraging existing CRM, Web services and security infrastructures.
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March 16th, 2007
Dan Miller
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