Testimonials for W3C's Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) 1.0
Recommendation
These testimonials are in support of W3C's SSML 1.0 Recommendation.
EDS helps business and
government clients in 60 countries achieve maximum returns from IT
investments. The natural sounding speech enabled by the SSML standard
will increase our ability to automate more of our customers' business
processes, cut costs and delight our customers' customers. EDS is
pleased to be a part of this standards activity that will enable us to
add mobility and natural interactions to the information age.
-- Balaji Prasad, EDS Chief Technologist for
Automotive Telematics, Electronic Data Systems
SSML, already used
by both VoiceXML 2.0 and SALT to specify verbal prompts in telephone
and multimodal applications, will enhance computer-user interactions
by enabling computers to speak to users in new and creative
applications.
-- Timothy A. Moynihan,
Director of Marketing,
Modular Communication Platform Division, Intel
International
Webmasters Association / HTML Writers Guild (IWA/HWG) and VoiceXML
Italian User Group, taking part in the Voice Browser Working Group,
are glad that Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) has become
a W3C Recommendation. This is an important step, not only for
voice applications development, but above all for the enrichment of
Internet content.
Furthermore, the creation of a standard
markup language that allows to authors to create more versatile Web
content and users to converse with speech engines represents a
significant advance in the field of multimodality and
accessibility.
-- Roberto Scano, W3C Advisory Committee
Representative, IWA/HWG; and
Fabrizio Gramuglio, VoiceXML Italia User
Group.
The Royal National
Institute of the Blind (RNIB) is the United
Kingdom's premier agency for blind and partially sighted people. We
support SSML since it enables control of text to speech in a standard
way, avoiding proprietary mark-up. This enables efficient production
of voice alternative for our customers.
-- Stephen King, Director Technical
and Consumer Services, Royal National Institute of the
Blind
As a leading player in speech technologies and voice platforms, Loquendo
believes that SSML 1.0 Recommendations is an essential step in
completing the Speech Interface Framework. Indeed, it will help
promote the speech application market, not only by enabling service
providers, content creators, operators and voice portals to deliver
a much richer user experience, but also by lowering barriers to
Web access for some users with disabilities.
Loquendo TTS product already completely supports the SSML 1.0
specification, which may be used in 16 languages. Loquendo's
high-quality, high-performance technologies and platforms power over
2,000,000 calls every day in the telecommunications and enterprise
markets throughout the world.
Loquendo is very pleased to
contribute to the development of this specification, and will continue
to give strong support to W3C Voice Browser and Multimodal
Interaction Working Groups.
-- Daniele Sereno, Vice President Product
Engineering, Loquendo
ScanSoft is
pleased to have been an active participant in the development and
proposal of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) specification, as
we are committed to the advancement of open standards, and our
solutions are uniquely optimized to support these standards. We
congratulate the W3C Voice Browser Working Group on reaching the
Recommendation milestone for Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML),
and applaud the organization's efforts, as we look to work together to
continue to advance the proliferation of standards-based speech
technology into the future of the speech business.
-- Peter Mahoney, vice president of worldwide
marketing, SpeechWorks, a Division of ScanSoft
Sun Microsystems
congratulates the Voice Browser Working Group on the announcement of
SSML as a W3C Recommendation. Sun is pleased to see that our initial
contribution of the Java Speech Markup Language (JSML) has served as
the basis for this W3C Recommendation. Sun supports this
Recommendation and commends the W3C Voice Browser Working Group for
its efforts in developing and bringing this specification to
Recommendation status.
-- Glenn Edens, Senior vice president, Director
Sun Labs
As one of the original
developers of the SABLE speech synthesis markup language, and one of
the early participants in the W3C's discussions on SSML, I am very
pleased at the release of SSML 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. SSML 1.0
is an important landmark in the standardization of voice interfaces to
the Web.
-- Professor Richard Sproat, Department of
Linguistics and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
SSML has
an important position in an evolving family of W3C standards that are
changing the way telephony applications are built. Where SRGS defined
acceptable speech input, SSML eases the process of generating natural
sounding speech output. As evidenced by the rapid adoption of
VoiceXML, the industry is embracing standards for benefits including
more innovation, lower costs, and greater flexibility. The final
Recommendation of SSML is another key milestone in the advancement of
open telephony platforms.
-- Jeff Haynie, CTO, Vocalocity
We are pleased
that SSML 1.0 has joined VoiceXML 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation. We
anticipate that the high-quality text-to-speech capabilities enabled
by SSML will increase the adoption of powerful VoiceXML-based
applications. The combination of the open standards that comprise the
W3C Speech Interface Framework will unlock the true value of Web
content.
-- Bruce Pollock, Chairman, VoiceXML Forum
Voxpilot is
thrilled to see SSML 1.0 reach W3C Recommendation and is proud to have
contributed to the efforts of the W3C Voice Browser Working Group
during the specification's development and testing. SSML offers a
flexible, Web-based and open standard paradigm for controlling speech
synthesis resources, thereby enabling the creation of high quality
speech interfaces based on dynamic information sources. Voxpilot
offers a complete SSML Processor as a component of its Open Media
Platform for carriers and enterprises, which supports integrations
with all the leading TTS engine vendors and includes its own optimised
streaming engine for rendering Web-based audio resources.
-- Dr. Dave Burke, CTO, Voxpilot
Ltd.
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability.
It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and
Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided
by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide
Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications
to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are
Members of the
Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/