IBM and Nuance talk up speech tech partnership

Focus on customer service, VoIP and device control.

IBM has announced plans to partner with Nuance to help push the development of speech recognition systems.

A new Joint Initiative Agreement builds on the technology and intellectual property collaboration between the companies announced earlier this year. The partnership will address the automotive, banking, electronics, energy, utilities, healthcare, insurance, media, entertainment, retail, telecoms, travel and transportation industries.

"As businesses and governments aim to operate more intelligently and efficiently, the full impact of speech technology is just emerging," said Frank Kern, senior vice president of global business services at IBM.

"Teaming with Nuance means great things for organisations and manufacturers that rely on speech technology to advance their own business objectives, and provide exciting new services for their customers."

IBM and Nuance will help develop speech-based systems focused on developing commerce, information access and collaboration in broad application domains like customer care, unified messaging and mobile search.

The collaboration will be split into three main categories: web application server capabilities for traditional and VoIP network infrastructures; advanced automated customer self-service and agent optimisation; and device control for in-vehicle and on-device systems.

"The potential innovations in speech technology that result from Nuance and IBM's combined efforts, expertise and resources are boundless," added Paul Ricci, chairman and chief executive at Nuance.

"Together we can achieve new benchmarks in design, usability and technical excellence by collaborating with IBM's renowned speech teams, and by serving as IBM's preferred partner for speech solutions."