Voice over Everything (VoE) will incorporate everything from
voice-activated documents to voicemails in email inboxes, says
Gartner. At the click of a button, users will be able to speak to
people who are working on a jointly written document to make
amendments, reply verbally to emails, or check a person's
availability.
Just as instant messaging has ‘presence’ technology that allows
you to see whether someone is available, busy, away from their
computer or off-line, so too will voice-embedded applications
leverage presence.
According to Gartner, VoE will increase productivity by reducing
the length of time it currently takes to make phone calls by
clicking on links within IT applications without dialling, looking
up numbers in a directory or having to organise conference calls.
VoE will also save businesses 15% to 30% on telephone costs.
“Traditional telephony vendors such as Alcatel, Avaya, Ericsson,
NEC and Nortel closely guard their existing telephony customers but
they have lost significant market share to Cisco in pure IP
Telephony,” said Geoff Johnson, research vice president with the
research and advisory firm.
“However, as voice becomes delivered in software rather than
hardware, as in a PABX [automatic private telephone switching
system], new players such as Microsoft threaten to gazump the
relationship between telephony users and network equipment
providers. Voice is becoming a ‘click’ on the desktop where
Microsoft has massive mindshare,” he said.
Johnson advised business owners and chief information officers
to get ready for VoE.
“They need to become aware of the way that voice is becoming
embedded into their mainstream business applications such as email,
ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] and voice-escorted web browsing
to aid customer transactions,” he said. “Similarly, IT application
developers must be flexible and prepare as they will increasingly
be asked to include voice in their applications.”
