NEW DELHI, INDIA: Telesoft Technologies recently announced a best-of breed alliance to drive next generation IVR solutions to the India market. Telesoft Technologies' high density carrier grade OKEFORD Media Platform, along with telisma's open platform multi-language automatic speech recognition (ASR) software, teliSpeech and Vicorp's xMP tools for simple drag-and-drop VoiceXML service creation combine to deliver fast time-to-market, multi-tenanted carrier grade IVR services capable of handling large call volumes in multiple languages.

Limitations of old style Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems currently deployed mean that they will have to be upgraded (often replaced) to support new open standards such as VoiceXML complemented by Eclipse based tools. This best-of-breed alliance allows telecom call centers a migration strategy to adopt the next generation IVR systems, while keeping current assets to their useful end-of-life.

Telesoft's OKEFORD Media Platform is a carrier-grade IVR system, handling 3,360 simultaneous calls in a single 5U chassis, making it the most powerful IVR for its size on the market today. Designed to handle the high call volumes of network operators and large call centers, each unit handles up to 500,000 call attempts per hour. Connecting into current TDM and next generation IP networks makes OKEFORD Media Platform both flexible and future proof.

TeliSpeech, telisma's ASR software supports 10 Indian languages, covering 89.5 percent of the 1.2Bn population. Languages covered include: Indian English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Bengali Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. Vocal interaction is particularly important to the Indian market where speech, rather than the written word, is often preferred. TeliSpeech's natural language technology picks out the keywords in an utterance and correctly directs a call allowing a more natural interaction for the user.

Vicorp's xMP service creation environment with its easy-to-use graphical interface allows voice services to be quickly built, tested and deployed. With open interfaces and multi-tenancy support, the xMP tools abstract code level complexities yet can build complex speech libraries and services that can be easily re-used. The xMP Console enables service operators to simply update and manage remote applications whilst xMP Reporter provides a strong set of logging/reporting functionality from services deployed on the IVR.

Together, the three products provide a best-of-breed next generation IVR platform that can handle the complexities of the Indian market, both in terms of diverse language support and high traffic volume, value added services generate as well as allow fast adoption of new services. The partnership will address business needs that drive self service automation (both speech and video) to a changing market in India.

Product applications with automated speech recognition and response include:
* Customer Care for Bill Payment
* Automated Information Points
* Mobile Top-Up Services
* Information: Stocks, Flights, Weather, Banking, News
* Infotainment: Ring Tones, Astrology, Matrimony Services, Contests, Games