Jaa

2 days to Microsoft Speech Server launch event at SpeechTek

  • Artikkeli

It's been a long time since I posted. My excuse is that we've been in crunch mode working hard to get everything ready for the launch this week.

At one point in the product cycle I had mistakenly thought that things were well under control and that we'd have no trouble hitting our target dates. However, this was before we decided to take on another major new set of functionality for the Speech Application SDK to generate reports and analyzing data from Microsoft Speech Server logs (which I'll talk about elsewhere).

This has been combined with the typical madness that leads up to any sort of product lauch (final last minute discovery of bugs, trying to make sure that the demo that is going to be shown on stage when Bill speaks is water tight, and a vast number of fit and finish issues). Consequently I'm feeling rather frazzled and haven't really had time to compose my thoughts for long enough to write them down here.

However, tomorrow I'm heading to SF and it's all starting to get exciting hearing about the plans. We're expecting something like 4000 people hear Bill speak at the keynote on Wednesday. Apparently we're supplying donuts for the event - we've ordered in excess of 6000 Krispy Kremes. After Bill's keynote there will be a further keynote for the SpeechTek audience in the Metreon cinema by Kai-Fu where we'll be showcasing some of the applications developed by our partners and early adopters.

Tomorrow it will be exactly 5 years since I started heading up a team of developers to produce a set of speech application authoring tools at a small company called Entropic. When I think of the fact that 5 years later these tools are going to be launched in front of 4000 developers by Bill Gates... well it blows me away.

See you at SpeechTek/VSLive!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2004
    Congratulations. Good work. I've been following the Speech work on the MS platform since I read the article about the Microsoft Agent ActiveX control back in 1997.

    You guys are coming along nicely. I've actually heard others at my client site (a big mobile telecom provider) mention the Speech server and SALT for the IVR system (they're currently entrenched in another vendor solution).

    Good luck with the demo. You all deserve a huge applause.

    I'm looking forward to developing solutions to include the speech server in the years to come. I think the first hobby project will be to integrate it with my home automation system. "Computer, dim lights - level 3. Play music - soothing classical".
  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2004
    A while ago I asked Microsoft to dominate speech recognition Today, I found out about Microsoft Speech Server. I know this has nothing to do with me, but I'd love to get more information on this. Speech is an area that's been ignored for far too long, and the deployment of software which addresses this in some way would be amazing. So, John, beyond the typical MS homepage stuff, what information is there?...