Home
News
E-mail Newsletters
Blogs
Tech Dispenser
Shark Bait
Knowledge Centers
Opinion
Webcasts
Video
Podcasts
White Papers
Computerworld Reports
Zones
Case Study Library
RSS Feeds
Events
Print Subscriptions

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters
For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
More E-Mail Newsletters 

Computerworld 2007Subscribe to Computerworld
40 years of the most authoritative source of news and information for IT leaders.

Voice Recognition Eases Call-In Trading

Maria Trombly   Today’s Top Stories    or  Other Computerworld Stories  
 

May 22, 2000 (Computerworld) -- DLJdirect Inc. last week became the latest online brokerage to jump on the voice-recognition bandwagon. The company signed a deal with Boston-based SpeechWorks International Inc., one of the two major software players in voice recognition.
DLJdirect, a subsidiary of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. in New York, plans to roll out within the next few months an interactive voice response system to replace the existing "press 1 to buy a stock" system with a self-learning, natural-language capability, said DLJdirect CIO Suresh Kumar.
The system will let a buyer call and say, "I want to buy 100 shares of company stock." The software will repeat the order and process the transaction. Customers can already place trades, get account data and look up market information by phone through a series of menu prompts.
"The new system will do exactly the same thing, except that you won't have to go through complex menus using the touch-tone telephone," Kumar said. "It'll make it a lot easier than what we have today."
A Good Match
Brokerage services are a perfect fit for voice-recognition technology, said Stuart Patterson, president and CEO of SpeechWorks. People buying and selling stock use a vocabulary too varied for easy access through menus and touch pads but small enough for software to process in real time, he said.
Other brokerages - including Charles Schwab & Co., Fidelity Investments and TD Waterhouse Group Inc. - also offer voice-recognition features, though their vendor is Nuance Communications in Menlo Park, Calif.
At DLJdirect, Kumar said the number of calls routed to the customer service department should drop from a quarter of all calls to less than one-tenth once the new voice features are added. That is desirable to brokerages because market volatility means that the call centers are often either overstaffed or understaffed.
Within the next few years, voice recognition is expected to spread to all automated phone answering systems, said Bill Hills, an analyst at Boston-based Aberdeen Group Inc. The main holdup is price and ease of installation - and the major vendors are working on both of these issues, Hills said.
The installation of a SpeechWorks system can take as little as three weeks, said Patterson.
"If there's a Web site, the whole process is, generally speaking, easier," he said. "We can reuse 80% to 90% of that infrastructure. But even connecting to the back end, if it's one simple order status check, can also be quick."
Pricing ranges from $100,000 to millions of dollars, he added, but prepackaged systems run as little as $40,000.




Print this Story Send Us Feedback E-mail this Story Digg! Digg this Story Slashdot this Story

Microsoft promises four patches next week
Google gives away home-cooked Web application security scanner
Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks
More top stories...
Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8
Apple cuts price of high-end SSD MacBook Air by $500
Ultrathin showdown: Apple MacBook Air vs. Lenovo ThinkPad X300 vs. Toshiba Portege R500

This old laptop: Revitalizing an aging notebook on the cheap
All it takes is a couple hours and about $125 to breathe new life into an old laptop. Here's how.
Bill Gates moves on
Is Microsoft's Golden Age over? What are Gates' most memorable quotes? Find out in Computerworld's complete coverage of the end of the Bill Gates era at Microsoft.
Five things you should never tell your boss
There are some things your CIO definitely doesn't want to hear. Also don't miss the flipside, Five things you should always tell your boss.
Hands-On: Firefox 3 fixes what's broke and keeps what's right
With its latest version, Mozilla's browser continues to raise the bar for what Web browsers should be.

FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE

Windows Vista A to Z
Reviews, analyses, how-tos, visual tours, hot issues and predictions about Microsoft's new OS.
IT Careers 2010
Four years from now, the IT field will be a vastly different place. Will you be ready?
All Zones
Application Performance Zone
Business Continuity Zone
Data Center Management Zone
Enterprise-Class Security Zone
The File Data Management Zone
Grid Computing on Windows Zone
Security Management Zone
ITIL Best Practices Zone
The SAS Zone
Storage Virtualization Zone
Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone


Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Enabling Data Centers that Are Both Automated and Dynamic
Enabling Data Centers that Are Both Automated and Dynamic
View this webcast now!
Go to the webcast 
Computerworld Technology Briefing: An open-source path to optimal virtualization
Download this Technology Briefing now!
(Source: Novell/IBM/Intel) Virtualization is about a lot more than just lowering total cost of ownership. In fact users that have taken an open source path to virtualization have realized the additional, mission-critical benefit of markedly reduced IT complexity, as well as a more flexible infrastructure that is easier to change to meet shifting, often unpredictable business requirements.
Download this executive briefing download
Rapid application development, rapid results
Download this special report now!
(Source: Intersystems) All too many businesses suffer from IT infrastructures that are a hodge-podge of disconnected databases and applications. What's needed is the ability rapidly develop connected applications under a unified service-oriented architecture. InterSystems Ensemble integration environment and Cache database are effective tools in answering this need, delivering a rapid ROI.
Download this white paper go
White Papers
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.
Deploying Virtualized NetWare on Linux Whitepaper
Toward More Flexible, Next-Generation Collaboration Solutions
Driving Business Success Through Workgroup Choice and Flexibility
View more whitepapers 
Virtualized iSCSI SANs: Flexible, Scalable, Enterprise Storage for Virtual Infrastructures
Enterprises of all sizes are building flexible storage infrastructures using iSCSI and advanced virtualization technologies. This joint VMware and Dell EqualLogic Virtualized iSCSI SAN white paper describes a virtualized infrastructure that applies storage and server virtualization technologies to cost-effectively achieve a flexible, high-performance, dynamic IT infrastructure that is simple to manage and scale.

Download this white paper 
Case Study: Simplified DR Planning and Implementation
LifeLink Foundation needed to provide business continuity and DR of critical transplant related information to multiple locations and needed to manage DR planning and implementation in a hurricane zone. Learn how VMware & Dell's EqualLogic iSCSI SANs worked together to implement two remote sites providing consolidated virtual storage, snapshot-based backup and recovery.

Download this case study  
Webcast: Disaster Recovery Simplified – iSCSI and VMware Site Recovery Manager Deliver Results
Quick recovery of operations after a site failure requires major planning and testing, dependent on an infrastructure and recovery plan that can be simply and affordably deployed. Download this Webcast presented by Dell and VMware to learn how new levels of integration between Dell's EqualLogic iSCSI storage area networks (SANs) and server virtualization can help solve these critical issues.

View this webcast 
Webcast: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery with iSCSI and VMware
Data protection and disaster recovery are top of mind for any IT manager, and the challenges of complexity and cost remain as obstacles. Dell EqualLogic virtualized iSCSI SANs and VMware Infrastructure 3 enhance the scalability, ease of use, and reliable operation of IT infrastructures to withstand failures and overcome disasters

View this webcast