Recent Posts - page 158

  • How Microsoft Could Rid the World of Telephone Numbers

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    Last week, longtime Microsoft watcher Mary Joe Foley opined that Microsoft has a “grand plan to eliminate phone numbers.” She cited direct quotes from speeches that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have made among the international carrier community. Foley refers to a new software “platform” called Echoes designed to enable telecom service providers to sync diverse address books, seamlessly send messages between IM and SMS and assign a local telephone number to people using Windows Live Messenger.

    Rather than concentrating on Echoes, Microsoft would have a better chance of eliminating phone numbers with “voice dialing.” It would involve speech-enabling the contact list, associating multiple “namespaces” (meaning phone numbers, IM user names, aliases on social networks, etc.) with an individual’s identity and then replacing dial-tone with a spoken prompt like, “what’s up?”

  • Contextual Communications for the Mobile Masses

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    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.

  • Advisory Service

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    Opus Research’s primary offering is a subscription-based Advisory Service. By subscribing, clients gain access to our forecasts, market models and analysis, which support strategic planning, business development and go-to-market tactics. Clients benefit from our intensive qualitative and quantitative research of… Read More ›

  • Voice Biometrics 2008: Meeting Implementation Challenges

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    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.

  • Opus Research Consulting Services

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  • Network World – April 24, 2008

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    Excerpt: “The story here is how that investment by Microsoft in Live Search and maps and other ancillary data is going to be presented to mobile subscribers in the format that is most convenient for them,” says Dan Miller, an… Read More ›

  • Making a Meaningful Metaphor: The Intelligent Customer Front Door

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    Genesys Labs is enlisting a multiplicity of partners into its intelligent Customer Front Door™ program. The iCFD is more than a metaphor because it calls for the integration of hardware, software and professional services that amount to big business for solutions providers across the boards.

  • Putting Microsoft and Aspect’s Venture in Context

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    The rebranding of Aspect’s core product line (as UC for the Contact Center) along with an investment from Microsoft invites skepticism. IP-based contact centers are multi-vendor domains. Microsoft expects its prospects to toss out old gear to move to an Aspect-based solution, it is bound to be disappointed.

  • Mobile Voice’s Next Chapter

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    Yahoo’s $20 million investment in Vlingo and the rollout of a speech-enabled flavor of Yahoo One Search 2.0 signal an important epiphany for mobile service providers. They have confidence that mobile subscribers will readily embrace reliable speech recognition as the fastest, safest, most convenient way to find, interact, and transact with their favorite applications.

  • Boston Globe – April 3, 2008

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    Excerpt: The voice-enabled mobile services industry is still in its beginning stages, said Dan Miller, senior analyst at Opus Research. Vlingo will compete against major players such as Nuance Communications in Burlington and Microsoft Corp. But the announcement yesterday is… Read More ›