Actually, the biggest annoncement in voice recognition phone...

Actually, the biggest annoncement in voice recognition phone services yesterday did not involve VCM.

The question is - Why didn't VCM win this one?

Here's an extract from an article in the AGE:

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The biggest contract yet signed in Australia for a natural language speech-recognition-and-response system has been won by SpeechWorks. Within 18 months the US-based company is to supply technology that ultimately will handle more than 24 million phone calls a year.

The multi-million-dollar contract is with Centrelink, the Federal Government customer service and employment agency that annually handles $51.7 billion in social security payments to 6.3 million people.

Centrelink operates the largest single-purpose contact centre in the southern hemisphere, with more than 4000 staff in 28 sites across the country.

Peter Chidiac, chief executive in Australia for the Boston-based company that grew out of technology first developed in the famous Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he had been working on the project for nearly three years.

"It's been a very long process," he said. "Centrelink did a great deal of research on the technology and looked at all the vendors. It was a very hard-fought battle and it is a huge win for SpeechWorks."

All of the development of the Centrelink system will be done in Australia. SpeechWorks will act as prime contractor and will provide the speech engine, but the speech platform, the user interface, will be built and supported by Information Technologies Australia (iTa) and managed by Telstra. The interactive voice response (IVR) platform will be provided by InterVoice-Brite of the US.
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