»

SOA

SOA Advisor

Expert analysis, advice and prognostications about Service Oriented Architecture and distributed computing.

RSS
All Posts | RSS

Our bloggers: Mike Kavis is a veteran Chief Architect with over 23 years of IT experience including distributed computing, SOA, BPM, data warehouse, business intelligence, and enterprise architecture. Former applications developers Rich Levin has been implementing, advising on, and writing about information technology for over 20 years, covered computer technology for CBS Radio and hosts the popular "PC Talk" show. Nicholas Petreley is a former programmer and consultant, has worked for InfoWorld, Computerworld, LinuxWorld and Network Computing World, webzines, and serves as contributing editor for CIO, focusing on SOA as a primary area of coverage.

Fri, August 15, 2008

VoxWare Customers are Speechless

Keywords: SOA, Business Process, voice recognition

VoxWare makes and sells SOA-based software that its clients use to process orders and check inventory, among other things. The software is speech-driven, including both voice recognition and text-to-speech. It enables workers to do their jobs hands-free, by wearing a headset instead of carrying around a clipboard. They interact with the system by speaking, and the system talks back to them, guiding them through the steps of their job and verifying their input.

We've been trying to publish a case study about one of VoxWare's customers for a few weeks now, with no luck. Their public relations people put us in touch with a couple customers, but the customers aren't being vocal, at least to us. The customer silence is due primarily to the fact that they are reluctant to share details about their proprietary technology. We're working on re-wording our questions to get these folks to be a bit more talkative.

It is a shame that it's taking so long, because it sounds like VoxWare could be the poster child for a successful implementation of an SOA-approach to business problems. VoxWare publishes a number of their own case studies, all of which are very impressive, but it would be nice to be able to do our own objective piece.

Here's why I'm anxious to see a case study. According to Scott Yetter, VoxWare President and CEO, one of the benefits they reap from SOA is the ability to customize the software not only according to the business processes of a company, but right down to the personal habits of the workers.

This is how software development often works in this kind of relationship. The customer describes the business problem in detail, even specifying every step that a worker will take in doing his job. The developers deliver a solution. The customer tries to use the software and then comes back and says, "Okay you delivered exactly what we asked for; now here's what we really need." Then the developers have to go back and redesign the software.

I don't know if VoxWare's solutions can avoid this conundrum, but VoxWare used SOA to make it easier to adjust the software to individual preferences. SOA enables developers to avoid building an inflexible monolithic package that demands users to adjust to the way the software works. Actually, this strength is not limited to SOA, it works for any well-designed system that is broken up into components that handle pieces of a complete business process. Thus, SOA is delivering on the promises of component-based architecture. If you design the services correctly, you can string them together in a variety of ways and still expect them all to work together. This lets you adjust the software to work the way people work, rather than expect people to adjust their work habits to match the software. The end result should be greater productivity and fewer errors, and that's what VoxWare's case studies seem to reflect.

Loading...
SOA Vendor Matrix

Find out what vendors offer the products you need.

View the Vendor Matrix »
SOA ABCs

Get up to speed on SOA.

Learn More »
Service-Oriented Architecture MarketSpace
With over 30 years' experience as a business partner to leading companies, SAP gives you a jump-start into strategic IT by providing solutions enabled for SOA that can help you transform your existing IT infrastructure into a more flexible business process platform.

 
SPONSORED LINKS
 

Webcast: SOA Brings Backend Systems into the Future, Rapidly & Successfully

Learn how the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor improves performance

The Future is Fusion. Only from AMD. Learn more

Providing Universal Search for Business

Embedding Architecture into the Organization

Renowned Engineering Institution Chooses AMD Processor-Based Servers

SAS a Leader in Forrester BI report. Click here to see evaluation.

Protect data-HP All-in-One and Disk-Based systems

Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Read Case Studies, Watch Demos, & Download for Free

The 2008 CEO Study: Implications for the CIO

HP LaserJet P4014n printer starting at $799 after $100 IS. www.hp.com

NEW HP Color LaserJet CP3525n printer starting at $699. » SHOP NOW. www.hp.com

Predict the future with HP Insight Power Manager

A new level of interoperability. Make IT Work As One@novell.com

Businesses Transform with VMware Virtualization

IT Service Management: Metrics That Matter

Download the free CIO Starter Kit to access useful resources created by top CIOs

Log onto Hitachi True Stories, films inspired by the next great achievement

Request a Novell/Microsoft deployment workshop

Strong Authentication. Secure USB data storage. One Device

Build up or Tear down? See how UC makes sense with Nortel. Calculate your UC ROI

SOA Educational Library at the TIBCO SOA Resource Center

A fresh look at the impact of customer intimacy.

Learn how to leverage virtualization for a 74% savings in TCO.

Find out how you can affordably consolidate applications with VMware.

Gap Analysis: The Case for Data Services

AMD. The Future is Fusion

Web 2.0 The New Face of the Web

Making Enterprise Architecture Work within the Organization

Efficient by design: Watch this flash demo of the Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor

HP and Oracle deploy unbreakable computing infrastructure at Replacements, Ltd.

Predict the future with HP Insight Power Manager

Drive Business Value with Enterprise Social Computing - whitepaper

See how IBM helped Bharti create a new business model

Read how IBM helped Hughes enhance security

HP LaserJet M3035 MFP series starting at $1,599. » SHOP NOW. www.hp.com

NEW HP Color LaserJet CM3530n MFP starting at $2,499. » SHOP NOW. www.hp.com

Affordable technology-no compromise. HP server solutions

Make IT Work As One@novell.com

Learn about the software-based VoIP solution from Microsoft

CIO Starter Kit includes useful resources created by top CIOs. Free Download>>

Rolling the dice with your security? Take the Self-Assessment Test now

Request a Novell/Microsoft deployment workshop and kit

Request a Novell/Microsoft deployment kit

Compuware.com - See how we make IT rock around the world

Discover PMI's credentials and career path tools

Learn how companies are changing how they reach out to their most profitable customers.

The Right and Wrong Master Data Management Strategies to Start Small and Grow Big

Find out why IDC thinks virtualization is changing operating environments.

Explore the impact virtualization can have on your bottom-line.

 
 
RESOURCE CENTER