Voice over Everything to change workplace communication

Voice over Everything (VoE) will incorporate everything from voice-activated documents to voicemails in email inboxes, says Gartner. At the click of a button, users will be able to speak to people who are working on a jointly written document to make amendments, reply verbally to emails, or check a person's availability.

Just as instant messaging has ‘presence’ technology that allows you to see whether someone is available, busy, away from their computer or off-line, so too will voice-embedded applications leverage presence.

According to Gartner, VoE will increase productivity by reducing the length of time it currently takes to make phone calls by clicking on links within IT applications without dialling, looking up numbers in a directory or having to organise conference calls. VoE will also save businesses 15% to 30% on telephone costs.

“Traditional telephony vendors such as Alcatel, Avaya, Ericsson, NEC and Nortel closely guard their existing telephony customers but they have lost significant market share to Cisco in pure IP Telephony,” said Geoff Johnson, research vice president with the research and advisory firm.

“However, as voice becomes delivered in software rather than hardware, as in a PABX [automatic private telephone switching system], new players such as Microsoft threaten to gazump the relationship between telephony users and network equipment providers. Voice is becoming a ‘click’ on the desktop where Microsoft has massive mindshare,” he said.

Johnson advised business owners and chief information officers to get ready for VoE.

“They need to become aware of the way that voice is becoming embedded into their mainstream business applications such as email, ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] and voice-escorted web browsing to aid customer transactions,” he said. “Similarly, IT application developers must be flexible and prepare as they will increasingly be asked to include voice in their applications.”