SALT Hopes to Reinvigorate Mobile Computing

SALT (Speech Applications Language Tags), a technology that allows multimodal communications such as speech as an input and data as an output, is trying to open up new applications and business possibilities.

According to In- Stat/MDR, by making it simpler and more user friendly to access the Internet by using human speech, SALT will enable the speech recognition software and applications, mobile Internet devices, and wireless subscriber airtime markets to grow.

"SALT does not provide any new information to the user, it makes current information available in a more user friendly environment," says Brian Strachman, a senior analyst with the high-tech market research firm. "SALT makes anything currently accessible on the Web, either input or output, available to the mobile user, and accessible in a manner that would be impossible without the technology. Typing into a laptop or PDA is too unwieldy, and speaking to a voice portal limits the amount of information the user can absorb. SALT takes the best possible input and best possible output, and combines them together to reinvigorate the mobile computing environment."

SALT's largest effect will not be in new product sales, but in increased sales of existing products. The first end-user SALT applications will hit the market in either Q1 or Q2 of 2003. In-Stat/MDR believes that SALT will be used in the following markets: - Delivery and Mobile Service - 802.11 Enterprise Products - Mapping and Retail Location - Mobile E-commerce - Sales Force Data and CRM