Metaphor Solutions Announces Strategic Relationship with Microsoft

WELLESLEY, MA - Metaphor Solutions has been selected by Microsoft as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in its Speech Partner Program (SPP). As a result of this relationship, Metaphor's packaged speech applications will be running on Microsoft Speech Server, which is based on the open industry standard Speech Application Language Tags (SALT). "With the help of Metaphor's packaged applications, Microsoft can realize its vision of speech becoming a mainstream, pervasive technology," said James Mastan, Microsoft's director of marketing for its Speech Technologies team. "Our speech platform, combined with Metaphor's packaged application solutions, will benefit the market by providing wider access to cutting-edge technology solutions that deliver significant business value." "We're very pleased to work with Microsoft in realizing our shared vision of mass adoption of speech IVR solutions," said Michael Kuperstein, CEO of Metaphor Solutions. "Microsoft's ability to educate the market and accelerate the adoption of new technologies, like speech, is unsurpassed in our industry. With both Microsoft and Metaphor focusing on small and medium enterprises, this relationship will allow us to reach more companies with low-priced, high value speech solutions that can be implemented quickly." Metaphor Solutions is able to provide packaged speech applications from technology called the Metaphor Conversation Manager (MCM), a flexible speech IVR application generator. During a speech application, it interfaces with callers, data sources and live agents. The caller interface is achieved through the Microsoft Speech Server by generating industry standard SALT scripts that the server processes. This server then interfaces with the telephone network to reach the caller.