ScanSoft Inc. on Tuesday announced that it had acquired a leading vendor of speech-based auto-attendant applications to strengthen its speech technology offerings.
ScanSoft, of Peabody, Mass., which in late December bought Montreal-based LocusDialog Inc., said it will focus its future auto-attendant development on the products acquired from LocusDialog. An auto-attendant can route calls based on the speaking of a name or department.
ScanSoft, which bolstered its speech technology last year with the acquisition of SpeechWorks International Inc., offers its own speech-enabled auto-attendants called VoiceRequest. It is ending development of that product but will continue to support VoiceRequest customers and offer upgrade paths for those seeking to move to LocusDialog, spokeswoman Marie Ruzzo said.
ScanSoft Chairman and CEO Paul Ricci, in a statement, said that the LocusDialog acquisition “will enhance our ability to better serve enterprise and carrier customers.” LocusDialog has about 1,000 installations worldwide of its auto-attendant, handling about 500 million calls a year, ScanSoft said.
ScanSoft and LocusDialog already had been working together before the acquisition. LocusDialog made use of SpeechWorks OpenSpeech Recognizer speech-recognition software and Speechify text-to-speech engine, Ruzzo said.
LocusDialogs chief executive officer, Richard Martel, will lead the auto-attendant strategy for ScanSoft within the companys Network Speech Solutions group. ScanSoft also plans to rename the LocusDialog auto-attendant product, currently called LocusDialogSTS, Ruzzo said.