Microsoft launches Speech Partner Program

I've received today an e-mail for Microsoft Partners, with information about their new Microsoft Speech Partner Program. Interesting to note the vision of having mobile devices being voice activated.

The recently unveiled partner program is designed to provide increased revenue and profit opportunities for new and existing partners interested in developing, deploying, and reselling Microsoft Speech Server solutions.

"Microsoft's vision is that speech will become a mainstream, pervasive technology that is accessible by any device, at any time, and from any place. This vision means that speech-enabled applications should be accessible by standard landline and mobile phones for speech-only (telephony) applications and by GUI-based devices like PCs, Smartphones and Pocket PCs for mixed speech/visual (multimodal) applications. This vision will be achieved as Web and voice infrastructures begin to converge into one unified infrastructure that leverages open industry standards such as Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) for the creation of telephony and multimodal applications. With this convergence, speech-enabled and visual-only Web-based applications will become one unified application — developed using standard Web programming tools, based on Web standards, and running on an enterprise's existing Web infrastructure."

The Microsoft Speech Partner Program provides valuable benefits available only to members. Among the benefits are:

Marketing materials and co-marketing opportunities at Microsoft sponsored events

Select listing in the online and printed Microsoft Speech Partner Directory

Access to discounted training

Opportunities to participate in beta programs and to access beta software