Isn’t this intriguing… Hosted/cloud contact center provider Telax made an announcement about the release of an HTML5-based agent desktop software, Call Center Agent (CCA), with an emphasis on its ability to run on Apple Macs.

Of course, if it’s HTML5 then it can really run on any modern browser, including those found on mobile devices based on Google Android and Apple iOS. According to the press release, the technology behind CCA is Websocket which provides bidirectional full-duplex communications over one single socket. Users can enjoy this technological wonder on the latest browsers such as Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.

Has anyone seen this in action?

Traditionally, contact centers (and enterprises in general) have shun Macs because of unfamiliarity and cost, but recently IT has been more receptive to Macs, especially now that they’re all Intel-based and can run Windows natively or virtualized. The popularity of Web-based enterprise apps also makes moot the argument about operating systems.

Have a look at the press release:

Telax Hosted Call Center, a leader in cloud contact center solutions, announced the release of its HTML5-based Call Center Agent (CCA) today.  Key to the development of the browser-based CCA was Websocket, a component of HTML5 that provides a bi-directional, full-duplex communication channel over a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) socket. Websocket is currently supported by the latest versions of Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Firefox, making Telax’s new CCA compatible with the most popular browsers in Mac environments.

“We’re pleased that Mac infrastructures are growing so strongly in business environments. It allows us to develop contact center tools that have capabilities beyond what they’ve traditionally had,” said Vladimir Pereira chief architect at Telax. “The adoption of Websocket by most major browsers is a huge step towards scalable real-time web applications. Our ultimate goal is to provide reliable and scalable solutions that are both easy to use and easy to deploy. This one is as easy as pointing a Mac browser to a url.”

Before HTML5, real-time unified communication software was better served as a client because its browser-based counterparts were unable to deliver an acceptable user experience. Some browser-based clients use 3^rd party software such as Adobe Flash or Sliverlight to operate adequately, but both solutions require software installation and are not mobile friendly.

Telax Hosted Call Center for Mac OS contact centers is the first web-based application that allows contact center agents to work from any location without needing to install software or suffer with an application that provides only partial functionality and unstable connectivity. This advancement in contact center software gives IT staff in Mac environments the opportunity to concentrate core competencies while significantly improving the customer experience.

About Telax Hosted Call Center:

Telax Hosted Call Center is North America’s leader in hosted call center solutions. Based in Toronto, Canada, Telax has been providing cloud-based business solutions to prominent public and private sector organizations since 1999. The simplicity delivered by Telax services enables clients like Best Buy, Northrop Grumman, Johnson & Johnson, CI Investments, the Globalive Group of Companies, Health Canada and the GSA, to reduce costs and improve efficiency, so that they can do more with their most critical resource: people. For more information, visit http://www.telax.com. For the latest Telax news, visit http://www.telax.com/category/news

Besides the significant hardware upgrades, the other selling point of the Apple iPhone 4S is Siri, the speech-enabled assistant that can help you schedule appointments, set reminders, read and compose SMS, and many other tasks. The technology is essentially a massive (considering how many iPhone 4S users are there in the U.S.) cloud-based speech recognition service reportedly provided by Nuance software.

Unfortunately Apple decided to make Siri only available on the iPhone 4S even though various resourceful hackers have proven that it can be run on the older 3GS and 4 models. Even the iPad 2 didn’t get Siri although its hardware is similar with the 4S.

Well, the folks at Applidium have cracked Siri’s protocol and published very informative technical details. Among them:

• Siri uses TCP port 443, over HTTPS (Secure HTTP)
• The request is a custom “ACE” method (as opposed to commonly used “GET”)
• Raw audio data is sent but compressed using Speex codec
• An iPhone 4S identifier is required with Siri

First, RIP Steve Jobs. The world will miss you dearly. It was only the day before his death that relatively new Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 4S.

So while many speculated and hoped for an iPhone 5 to be announced, it was only an iPhone 4S being the grand finale in the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event. Yet it was fitting that Apple chose that name for the event because the real star of the show was Siri, the new voice-capable assistant available exclusively on the iPhone 4S (thanks to its powerful dual-core A5 CPU).

The live Siri demo went without a hitch — Apple indeed risked a lot to publicly demonstrate its features right in front of journalists and bloggers. Although Siri’s still slapped with a “beta” sticker, it seemed solid enough during the demo.

The question on a lot of speech geeks’ minds is, of couse, does Siri use Nuance technology, considering all the rumors of an Apple/Nuance partnership? Even MG Siegler from TechCrunch wonders the same thing and based on the timing of an oddly worded Nuance press release, he seems to think so:

Hmm. Nuance seemed to be going out of their way to not say that they were powering the awesome new Siri feature of the iPhone 4S. In fact, it almost reads like a company that just got its hat handed to it by Apple, and wanted to give the “it’s great to see a massive company validate the space” statement.

So I decided to ask the representative directly: is Nuance powering the new Siri feature? The only thing said in response: “Apple licenses Nuance’s voice technology for use in some of its products.” Followed by, ”The company is not authorized to comment on specific capabilities or devices.”

Heh.

In other words, yes, Nuance is powering Siri. But Apple clearly struck a deal with Nuance which precludes them from talking about it. This is Apple technology, this is not about Nuance, is how I imagine Apple may put it. Apparently, Nuance is happy enough with Apple’s undoubtedly large check for this licensing agreement that they are willing to keep quiet.

(Side note: What’s also interesting from Siegler’s article is that Siri tried Vlingo first before settling on Nuance.)

In the past Apple hasn’t been shy to invite partners and developers on stage to toot horns, so why not Nuance in this case?

Is it game over for other speech tech companies?

Nuance is truly the dominating force in this area and with a partner like Apple, it’s reminiscent of the famed Wintel alliance that still exists today…

Today the company announced its NDEV Mobile program which offers its popular Dragon SDK to multiple platforms: Web-based, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Even the lowest tiered NDEV Silver membership will give a developer plenty of access to Nuance’s popular speech technologies.

And NDEV Silver is free. Yup, get ready to see many, many occurrences of people talking to their phones in the coming months…

See Nuance’s press release:

Burlington, Mass. – September 27, 2011 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that its Nuance Mobile Developer Program, now NDEV Mobile, features new services that make it easier than ever for developers to voice-enable apps with Nuance’s industry leading speech technology. NDEV Mobile now features three new service tiers – Silver, Gold, and Emerald – that give developers more choice and flexibility in how they bring Dragon-powered innovations to market. The Dragon Mobile SDK made available through the NDEV Mobile program now also supports Windows Phone 7 in addition to Android and iOS, as well as an HTTP web services interface, and, brings developers eight new languages for voice recognition.

NDEV Mobile has already experienced great success since its launch in January, 2011, with more than 4,000 iOS and Android developers signing on to access the Dragon Mobile SDK across the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. This success has led to demand for even more flexibility and support in bringing voice-enabled applications to market. As such, NDEV Mobile now features three new tiers of service to better meet the diverse needs of the broader mobile developer community:

• NDEV Silver: NDEV Silver Services provide Android, Windows Phone 7 and iOS app developers with the ability to deploy their apps for free with the accuracy and reliability that only Nuance can provide. Developers will also have free access to Nuance’s connected text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities in over 30 languages, bringing natural sounding read back of text in the cloud. Further, NDEV Silver members get access to Bluetooth use cases and hands-free voice applications.NDEV Silver Services members have access to the world’s highest quality speech recognition technology for both general dictation and search. Additionally, the Dragon Mobile Developer Center provides a centralized resource for speech information and expertise including on-line forums, code samples, and full documentation.
• NDEV Gold: NDEV Gold Services offer access to SSL data encryption, more deployment flexibility and enhanced support. In addition to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7, Gold Services members can take advantage of Nuance’s HTTP web service interface, which extends the power of Dragon to any mobile device while giving developers greater control over the user interface.NDEV Gold Services members’ applications can take advantage of SSL for encrypted data transmission, as well as open access to analytics tools that will help them maximize the impact and effectiveness of the voice experience their app delivers. Further, Gold Services members have access to one-on-one Nuance assistance in addition to the NDEV Mobile online community resources.
• NDEV Emerald: NDEV Emerald Services are designed to meet the unique needs of NDEV Mobile community members looking for a truly differentiated speech experience on their apps. NDEV Emerald members have an array of customization and service options that bring Nuance’s extensive speech expertise and service capabilities to a diverse developer base – ranging from start-ups to wireless carriers, OEMs, and large enterprises. Emerald Services include custom vocabularies and grammars, user experience consulting, speech integration, advanced text-to-speech, high-availability deployment, and unmatched Nuance support – pre and post deployment, including dedicated account management resources.

Available to all NDEV Silver, Gold, and Emerald members, are eight new speech-to-text languages supported by the Dragon Mobile SDK – Canadian French, Americas Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Taiwan Mandarin, and Cantonese – in addition to already supporting US, Australian and UK English, European Spanish, European French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese for dictation and search. Additional languages will continue to be added through the end of the year, offering developers broader geographic expansion and availability of their innovative voice-enabled apps across the globe.

“The success of our NDEV Mobile developer program has proven that our market-leading voice capabilities drive incredible value for developers across a variety of markets,” said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. “Our new multi-tiered services options deliver developers the options and services they’ve been asking for. It’s never been easier to deliver the power of voice-enabled apps to the market, tailored and customized to meet the needs of each app’s unique consumer base.”

NDEV Mobile has voice-enabled some of the market’s most popular apps, including Siri, Price Check by Amazon, Ask for iPhone, Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, RemoteLink from OnStar, SpeechTrans, Yellow Pages and AirYell from Avantar, iTranslate, Taskmind, SayHi Translate, Vocre, Bon’App, and many others.

 The Dragon Mobile SDK is available for iOS 4.0 (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), Android 2.1 and higher, Windows Phone 7.1 and via an HTTP web services interface. For more information about the NDEV Silver, Gold, and Emerald Services, please visit the NDEV Mobile developer portal at dragonmobile.nuancemobiledeveloper.com

Dragon has long been a leading speech recognition application on the desktop, used by millions of people around the world. Nuance has launched an array of Dragon applications across a variety of mobile platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, and more.

To learn more, visit www.nuancemobilelife.com.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world.  Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications.  For more information, please visitwww.nuance.com.

Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

The statements in this press release relating to future plans, events or services, are forward-looking statements which are subject to specific risks and uncertainties. There are a number of factors which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward looking statements, including fluctuations in demand for the Nuance products, and the continued development of Nuance products. The reader is warned not to rely on these forward-looking statements without reservation, since these are simply reflections of the current situation. Nuance disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this document.

Recently there’s quite a buzz — and new evidence — about a close partnership between Apple and Nuance. Speech technology is not new and neither is the fact that computer operating systems have incorporated it to a certain extent (mainly text-to-speech, or TTS). Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the first ever Mac on January 24, 1984? He actually allowed Mac to greet the audience (see 3:30 mark):

The robotic TTS doesn’t sound as sexy as Mac OS X’s Agnes, Kathy, Vicki, or Victoria, but the crowd went wild nonetheless. Back then it was pretty impressive for such a tiny computer to be able to speak. Even until today, Apple stayed true to its core philosophy of delivering the best user-friendly products, and part of that means adopting I/O interfaces that are natural to a human: speech, handwriting, and gestures.

The Mac introduction footage showed speech in Mac OS. It also exists in Mac OS X and iOS (as Voice Control, to a limited extent).

Handwriting recognition (or, as some may ridicule, the lack thereof) was one of the highlighted features of the Apple Newton, the grandfather of PDAs introduced in 1993. The technology is present in Mac OS X and iOS as well — for example, I’m able to input Chinese characters by writing on the trackpad or iPhone screen.

Starting with the iPhone came the prevalence of gesture input. We’re all quite familiar with the tapping, swiping, and pinching gestures in using the iPhone and other smartphones as well. Apple even made this available on devices with trackpads. This input method is by far the most natural — even toddlers “get it.”

But I digressed. This article is about how the Apple-Nuance partnership could impact customer service technologies.

So, what really caught my attention was a piece from TechCrunch:

In digging into the information about the relationship between the two companies, we had heard that Apple might actually already be using Nuance technology in their new (but yet to be officially opened) massive data center in North Carolina. Since then, we’ve gotten multiple independent confirmations that this is indeed the case. And yes, this is said to be the keystone of a partnership that Apple is likely to announce with Nuance at WWDC next month.

More specifically, we’re hearing that Apple is running Nuance software — and possibly some of their hardware — in this new data center. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple will be able to process this voice information for iOS users faster. Second, it will prevent this data from going through third-party servers. And third, by running it on their own stack, Apple can build on top of the technology, and improve upon it as they see fit.

We already know Apple’s interested in better speech tech. It bought Siri and has been soliciting speech-related engineers. If TechCrunch is right, it would be Apple’s foray into cloud-based speech tech. The company certainly has the money and know-how to grow another massive online service besides iTunes, App Stores, and MobileMe.

Proven Nuance speech technology hosted on Apple’s massive infrastructure? That’s a dream come true for a customer service app developer!

A company with a speech-enabled IVR can look into developing an iOS app that’s also speech-enabled, without having to burden the company’s speech servers. If the app can deliver on a better user experience with speech capabilities, can you imagine the number of calls reduced to the IVR? Phone calls and speech licenses are expensive, so divert these interactions to the app and through the user’s own monthly data subscription and Apple’s servers in N.C.

Plenty of companies already have their own iOS apps, but not many are focused on customer service. It’s time they think about the next version of their Company App — with speech.

Of course, this all hinges on Apple making the speech services unrestricted to developers. More reason to keep an eye on this year’s WWDC announcements. That is, if you’re passionate about better customer service, speech tech, and mobile apps.

TechCrunch is reporting that Apple and Nuance have been talking in recent months — most likely about a partnership:

Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we’ve heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.

If you’ve worked with contact center applications in the past few years, you’re probably somewhat familiar with speech technology, and no doubt have heard of Nuance. Coming from a contact center background, it’s sort of refreshing to hear and use speech recognition on my smartphone. Google even baked speech reco into its latest Chrome browser (run a cool demo here, Chrome 11 required).

Late last year Apple posted open positions for voice and speech experts, and now six months later there are rumors of a possible acquisition or partnership deal with Nuance, the top speech technology vendor.

Yes, speech technology is making quite a comeback, especially if it’s catching Apple’s eye.

Earlier this year I cautioned against companies making tablets specifically marketed for the enterprise.

The facts laid before our eyes are that consumer tablets, especially the Apple iPad, are making inroads into the enterprise with lesser resistance and greater enterprise-friendly security features.

From Network World:

“Enterprise CIOs are adding iPad to their approved device list at an amazing rate,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said recently. “Today, over 80 percent of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65 percent in the September quarter. Some recent examples include JPMorgan Chase, Cardinal Health, Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, Sears Holdings and DuPont.”

A major reason that iPads are being accepted in the enterprise is that Apple significantly upgraded its iOS operating system last summer to include a number of enterprise-friendly security features.

Now the next question may be, But can another tablet device co-exist and complement the iPad in the enterprise?

To which I say, Just stop it! First, nobody wants to carry two tablets. That’d defeat the purpose of mobility, wouldn’t it?

Second, there is no enterprise tablet market. Consumer tablets are powerful enough to be used in the enterprise. If a company continues the path to make and market an “enterprise tablet,” then it’s a company that’s very out of touch with market trends and demands.

The market for mobile enterprise applications, on the other hand, has room to grow. After all, a tablet is just a piece of shiny glass without useful apps.

The Consumer Electronics Show is soon to begin in Las Vegas, and the break-out product this year appears to be tablet devices. There has to be at least 100 new tablets being announced by the usual suspects (Dell, Acer, Samsung, etc.), but now even television-maker Vizio is entering this market with its VIA Tablet and VIA Smartphone. Most of these are based on Google’s Android, but there are others like HP’s WebOS-based PalmPad, a few Windows 7 tablets, and RIM’s PlayBook.

(Wait — RIM? At a consumer electronics show? Whatever happened to the “business” oriented device?)

The simple truth is, there hasn’t been an enterprise tablet market. When Avaya, Cisco, and RIM announced their tablet plans and showed off the fancy demos, they’re trying to ride the wave created by Apple with its iPad. They’re attempting to do in the enterprise market what Apple had done in the consumer market. Apple now enjoys tremendous first-mover advantage in the overall tablet market share, but the invading Android army is encroaching.

What’s likely to happen is that tablets from Avaya, Cisco, RIM, and maybe even HP, may end up as casualties in the crossfire between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Companies like Avaya, Cisco, and RIM make their profits on licenses, hardware, and professional services. The telephony servers and data routers are what sells in the enterprise. If they’re trying to sell an “enterprise tablet” priced at near or above $1,000 each, with all the bells and whistles, but partially or fully proprietary, then they better be ready to hear a lot of rejection. Because the iPad and competing Android tablets are gaining traction in the enterprise market already. There’s no stopping the flood of Android tablets at cheaper (consumer- and enterprise-friendly) prices.

Just look back at history as it’s often our best teacher. The automobile industry was once dominated by American automakers like Ford and GM. They’re the first movers. Then came the flood of cheaper, affordable Japanese imported cars. What happened to the American car companies?

Or the boom of the PC industry when Apple reigned supreme until IBM and its clone PCs flooded the market.

The only way to survive is to innovate like crazy, as Apple does, or flood the market, as Google does. Neither has been or can be achieved, in my opinion, by Avaya, Cisco, and RIM.

In essence, it’s not wise for Avaya, Cisco, and RIM to pick fights with Apple and Google. Lose the desire to make an “enterprise tablet” and focus on delivering enterprise apps on existing tablets.

For more coverage of CES 2011, visit my gadget blog at gagagadget or follow @gagagadget on Twitter.

We’ve all interacted with “them” before — speech-enabled machines to help us navigate IVR menus or take us to a customer service representative. You probably spoke to these machines ten years ago, saying the same words or phrases, to achieve the same results. And today you’re still repeating those words, doing the same things.

In other words, what has speech technology brought us?

Thanks to the miniaturization of processing components, speech recognition software now fits in the palm of your hand such as a mobile phone. Both Android and iOS platforms have some built-in speech capabilities, albeit not very refined. Then there are third-party applications such as Dragon Dictation (made by Nuance) and Siri (acquired by Apple) that complements the operating system’s speech capabilities.

There may be renewed interest in speech tech especially in the mobile consumer space. Recently Apple has been recruiting for speech application engineers, speech recognition engineers, and speech research scientists. And they want people who are already familiar with products like Nuance Recognizer, IBM WebSphere Voice, and Google Voice Search.

Apple is known to propel certain technologies into the mainstream. Maybe 2011 will be the year of speech tech, and one day a business will be able to run a speech IVR on the Android platform.

Nortel may have fallen, but its intellectual properties still hold some good value, according to this Reuters report.

Bids are soon due for the patent portfolio of Nortel Networks and among those interested is Apple, propelled by the success of the iPhone to become a relatively new entrant in telecom:

The patents cover wireless handsets and infrastructure, as well as optical and data networking, Internet, Internet advertising, voice and personal computers.

The patents likely to draw the most attention relate to third- and fourth-generation wireless technology such as Long Term Evolution, with device-makers such as Research In Motion, Motorola, and Apple seen as likely bidders.

Of course, Google is in the bidding too. These Silicon Valley tech giants have become a major driving force in the convergence of computing and telecom. Both Google and Apple have enough cash on hand to start a bidding war as well, and we all know that these two companies have evolved from friends to competitors recently.

A bidding war between Google and Apple for Nortel patents — now that’s what I’d call entertainment!