One thing’s for sure, the age of Recombinant Communications (RC) has rendered moot the classic “Apps versus Tools” debate and obliterated an entire category of solutions providers. Since the turn of the millennium when the the voice application ecosystem bragged a pretty robust roster of “pure plays”, we’ve seen the numbers steadily diminish. BeVocal was acquired by Nuance; Microsoft absorbed Tellme; NetByTel split itself between Voxeo and TuVox. Apptera morphed into a mobile advertising aggregation and distribution platform. And now TuVox is becoming part of West Interactive pantheon of cloud-based resources.

TuVox was co-founded by Steve Pollock (coming over from Edify) and Ashok Khosla (who had been the Managing Director of Apple’s development labs in India among other endeavors). The two visionaries saw an opportunity for a high-tech firm that could use advanced VoiceXML, Eclipse-based application development tools and techniques bordering on artificial intelligence to shorten the time it takes to deliver speech-enabled applications that, in many ways, mimicked human-to-human interactions.

TuVox has long placed emphasis on rapid deployment and constant tuning/refinement over time. It has also exhibited high-levels of flexibility in terms of deployment strategies. It operates its own hosting facilities built largely on Genesys’ Voice Platform (GVP) technology in Texas, Florida and Georgia, but has also, at various times, had its applications running “inside” or “on top of” application servers in Tellme and Convergys’ clouds.

Going forward, West notes that AMC Entertainment, Canon, ACER (#2 PC manufacturer in the world), National Research Corporation and Progress Energy are among Tuvox’s largest clients. Over the years, however, TuVox’s tools and resources were employed to support new phone-based interfaces for an impressive customer list, that has included 1-800-Flowers.com, American Airlines, British Airways, M&T Bank, Motorola, Telecom New Zealand, Time, Inc., BECU (Boeing Employees Credit Union), Virgin America and USAA. Thus it has built an equally impressive library of showcase (but customized) voice applications for travel (especially airlines), entertainment, telecom, utilities, retailers and financial services.

With the acquisition, West Interactive is solidifying its expansion strategy, in terms of both geography and functionality. Both companies have extensive experience with GVP; but have “multi-platform” experience and aspirations. Both see growth potential beyond North America and have experienced success in Australia/New Zealand and Western Europe. Perhaps most important, they share an engagement model that promises clients rapid, rock solid deployment, constant monitoring and maintenance and reliable reporting and analysis. This product range addresses the expectations of the customers for cloud-based, hosted or “on-demand” solutions providers.

Categories: Articles

Tags: hosted speech, Recombinant Communications, acquisitions, West Interactive