IBM woos resellers with new voice system

Speech recognition software is '53 per cent quicker' than using a keyboard, says Big Blue.

IBM is hoping to drive sales of a voice recognition system which it claims is "53 per cent faster than using the keyboard". The company's ViaVoice Pro Enterprise Edition will be sold specifically through resellers.

Duncan Ross, head of voice systems at Big Blue, said that previous voice offerings were not attractive enough for resellers. "We have come full circle. It was a very expensive process and there was not much room for margin for resellers," he said.

Ross also claimed that the Pro Enterprise edition is easier to sell. "In the early days users needed to teach their computer their own voice, but with this product it only takes 10 minutes to familiarise the computer with the voice," he explained.

The software can analyse existing documents, learn regularly used words and adapt to different accents.

Colin Howman, managing director of the enterprise division at IBM reseller The Speech Recognition Company, said that Big Blue had neglected resellers with voice products in the past.

"It lost an awful lot of channel partners in the late 1990s, but seems to be recognising the importance of resellers once again," he said.