Microsoft To Ship Speech Server In Spring

Microsoft will formally launch its Speech Server at Avios-SpeechTEK, which this year will be combined with Microsoft's VSLive! and Mobile Developer Conference (DevCon) 2004 shows, said David Lazar, director of developer tools product management, Microsoft. The company also is slated to ship the product around the same time, but Lazar did not provide a specific general-availability date.

Speech Server is designed to run on Windows Server 2003 and supports Speech Application Language Tags (SALT), a standard backed by Microsoft. It is designed to run speech-enabled Web applications for telephony-based speech as well as applications that can, for example, trigger a command in an e-mail client or browser when a voice command is given over the phone.

Developers attending any one of the three conferences, which will be held at Moscone West in San Francisco, will be able to go to all three, and Microsoft Chief Architect Bill Gates will give a keynote address to attendees of all three conferences. Next year, the conferences will return to their usually scheduled separate events, Lazar said.

At VSLive! in March, Microsoft will release another pre-beta technology preview to the next version of Visual Studio.NET, code-named Whidbey, Lazar said. A beta is expected by mid year, with the full product release, as expected, in the second half of 2004, he added.

Mobile DevCon 2004 will, as usual, focus on the development of application on Microsoft's mobile technologies, such as PocketPC and SmartPhone, Lazar said.