XplanaZine

Introduced in January at Lotushpere, IBM’s new Sametime Everplace3 instant messenger client is an interesting attempt at integrating data elements into a voice-based device.
The key to this new iteration is “presence awareness,” a tool available when using Sametime in conjunction with IBM’s Collaboration Center portal. When a user is connected, his or her presence information is made visible to other users courtesy of a small cell phone image next to the user’s screen name. See who’s available, send them a message — text or voice — or take the time to call them.
Obviously, this is only a first step. If you’re using this on a phone, why not call them in the first place? But Sametime is also extensible to handhelds that are not phones and so the data integration — full messaging and e-mail functionality — becomes important.
And this is just an extension of the work IBM has already done in the field of voice integration. Their ViaVoice Mobility Suite extends voice recognition and dictation capabilities to handheld devices like the PocketPC and they are still one of the primary researchers in the area of voice technologies. All of this, of course, points to a larger question — what is the real place of voice and speech data in computing in the near future?
I don’t have a crystal ball, but it seems that we have accepted the fact that, for the immediate future, voice applications will be implemented in small, incremental steps within known and familiar contexts. This means that we will continue to see enhancements in existing voice applications within Windows and Mac OS, and that we’ll see small improvements to products such as Viavoice. These products cater to a general and business population that wants to see real, practical applications that work before they invest their hard-earned money. We’ll see a lot of attention given to VoIP on wireless networks and, the biggest vertical market for businesses and education, this next year will feature intense competition in synchronous presentation/training software that enable synchronous voice communication via the Web (products like Macromedia’s Flash Communication Server).
Finally, 2003 will see it’s biggest jump forward in voice technologies in the gaming industry with the explosion of multi-player online role playing games (MORPG’s). Playstation and Xbox have already started duking it out and the competition between them and other gaming sites will only increase the push for more realistic collaboration with voice technology.
The bottom line? Gaming sees big advances because there is a proven niche and great demand. The advances in voice technology for speech recognition and business applications will be much smaller as vendors are forces to wait for market niches to solidify and expand.