Dale Hartzell, Vice President of Marketing, SandCherry

Q
Last month SandCherry announced a joint solution with BEA Systems. What can you tell us about this joint solution?

A SandCherry has devoted a significant amount of time and effort to building products that make it easier to extend applications, especially Web applications, to phone, mobile and multimodal devices by simplifying the integration of speech components. Combining SandCherry's SoftServer™ platform and AppRun™ VXML browser with BEA WebLogic Server and Portal products allows enterprises and service providers to cost-effectively add a speech-based interface to Web-based customer service, workforce management and content services applications in which they have already invested.

Q
What are the problems of speech solutions that SandCherry and its partners are working to overcome?

A The biggest problem that we are addressing is the high cost of deploying and maintaining speech solutions. SandCherry is not only working to reduce the cost of the platform and components, but is also creating solutions with partners to reduce costs across the entire speech application lifecycle. This includes visible costs such as development, testing, integration and deployment, and also hidden costs such as lost sales, customer dissatisfaction and churn resulting from performance, reliability and scalability problems of a speech solution, platform or its components.

Q
What is SandCherry's commitment to advanced voice services?

A SandCherry is committed to building software components that enable speech solutions to emulate the success of Web solutions, which can be cost effectively built and deployed by companies ranging from small enterprises to carrier-class service providers. SandCherry is intensely focused on partnering with other companies to build a value chain that includes Systems Integrators, application vendors and software component vendors to deliver complete solutions to the market.

Q
What has been the initial response to AppRun VXML, which was released in mid-June?

A We've received a very positive response to the product, both for use on the SoftServer platform and for use with other vendor's solutions. AppRun VXML is an affordable, VXML 2.0 compliant browser that isn't tied to any single vendor's platform or speech components. It exemplifies SandCherry's commitment to providing superior value through open solutions that satisfy a customer's current and future needs without being locked into a proprietary technology.

Q
How does the cost per port of AppRun VXML compare to other browsers?

A With a list price of $80 per port, AppRun VXML is less than a quarter of the cost of other leading VoiceXML browsers. We see the VoiceXML browser market following in the footsteps of the Web browser market, with prices declining as standardization among browsers grows - increasing application portability between different products.

Q
SandCherry recently brought Michael Sajor on board as vice-president of mobility solutions. Why the focus on mobility?

A Mobility solutions are about anytime, anywhere, any device access to applications for employees, customers or subscribers. Speech is critical to extending an application's reach beyond PC and wireless data solutions to the billions of phone, mobile and multimodal devices. Sajor has joined SandCherry to increase our focus on the applications, components and partners for delivering such speech-enabled solutions for mobile users.

Q
We understand SandCherry is broadening its product line. Please give details on the areas that you are trying to help customers with.

A SandCherry is focusing on creating additional software components to improve application development and provide a much stronger tie to the Web application infrastructure. We are introducing AppDev™ VXML, a new development tool integrated with BEA's WebLogic Workshop development environment, which allows developers to create a speech interface to a Web application while reusing the Web application's underlying business logic and data integration. In addition, we are adding a SandCherry-developed SoftPhone to our AppTuner verification tool that allows developers to interact with the application they have developed. Together with WebLogic Workshop, AppDev VXML and AppTuner provide a standalone PC or laptop-based development and test environment for speech applications.

Q
What will SandCherry be exhibiting at Pervasive03?

A SandCherry will be introducing AppDev VXML, offering in-booth demonstrations of this new development tool which allows the creation of a speech interface to a Web application while reusing the Web application's underlying business logic and data integration. We will also be demonstrating speech and multimodal applications for customer service, workforce management, e-commerce and content services, including an interactive voice-based notification service.