Angel.com Launches Service to Enable Online Voice Site Development by Business Users
MCLEAN, VA -- Angel.com announced the general availability of its service at www.angel.com. Their Web site allows non-technical users to build and deploy speech recognition applications (Angel Voice Sites) via a point-and-click interface.
Users can choose from a variety of online application templates and simple wizards to set up typical speech applications like auto-attendants, virtual assistants and enterprise voice portals. The core of Angel.com is its patent-pending Site Builder tool. Using an intuitive analogy to the Web, users can interactively build custom Voice Sites consisting of an unlimited number of building blocks called Voice Pages. The Angel.com Site Builder is based on a cohesive and extensible framework of voice page types. The current version includes voice pages for interactive delivery of audio clips or synthesized text, intelligent call routing, and speech-based data capture. Additionally, Angel.com provides a module, which allows users to integrate intelligent voicemail capabilities into their Voice Sites and to access voice messages via phone, email and Web. With these basic components and the ability to upload sound files or record content over the phone, users can design and create voice applications in minutes. Angel.com also integrated an online phone number provisioning system, which allows users to instantly connect their Angel Voice Sites to toll-free and local phone numbers in the U.S. "Customers are amazed to see how easy it is to build reliable voice applications with Angel.com," says Michael Zirngibl, general manager of Angel.com. "We see a strong demand for basic Voice Sites in numerous vertical and horizontal markets. With its unique online toolset and the current no-barrier self-service model, Angel.com offers the only solution that is affordable for businesses of any size and ensures a production rollout of speech enabled applications in less than a day." "The intersection of the Internet and telephony gave rise to the promise of a 'voice web' - yet none of the players out there have concretely realized an intuitive and executable voice linking methodology, until Angel," says Mark Plakias, senior vice president, communications and infrastructure at the Kelsey Group. "In order to realize the 'network effect' of viral techniques three things are required: rapid content development by non-technical authors, self-publishing and cross-promotion, and zero-cost or incremental pricing. We have worked with Angel over the past year because this team has integrated these three capabilities far beyond anybody else we have seen out there." While transparent to the user, Voice Sites created on Angel.com represent fully compliant VoiceXML applications that are hosted on standard telephony and carrier platforms.