As a sign of the times, Avaya is expanding its efforts to market automated speech processing software from Loquendo, giving its customers a lower-priced alternative to Nuance (and IBM). The news broke at SpeechTEK last week, but we neglected to mention it in our conference wrap-up piece on Friday. Part of the reason is that the change is very subtle. Avaya has long marketed Loquendo as a candidate for voice self-service on the Avaya Voice Portal (AVP). With this agreement, In addition to the AVP, Loquendo speech technologies can be integrated with other Avaya contact center solutions, including Intelligent Customer Routing (ICR), and the fast-growing outbound Proactive Outreach solutions.

The agreement is further evidence that enterprise customers continue to look for lower-cost ways to incorporate speech processing in their customer care workflows. But there is equally strong evidence that enterprises (especially at the high end) don’t take the decision to move off of their Nuance solutions lightly. Still, the Loquendo alternative will provide a test of the perceived value of speech-enabled customer care around the world and across the spectrum of firmographics.

Our sources at Avaya tell us to expect another high-growth quarter for AVP, thanks to stepped up sales in the Asia-Pacific region. That doesn’t bode so well for sales of speech licenses, in that the region is perfectly content with DTMF-based (touch-tone) access to interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Yet the mix of modes and media is likely to change as enterprise customer care strategies take into account the predominance of mobile phones as primary communications devices in the region. Bellwether firms are incorporating text messaging and video into their mobile customer care strategies.

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