The VoiceXML Forum Technical Council

Contact Information (Optional)

Please tell us the name of your company and business unit, and give us a contact person who we can discuss this survey with.  We promise to keep your responses confidential within the Technical Council.

1. Your Company's Use of VoiceXML

Please give us an idea of how much your company uses VoiceXML.

1-1. If your company/business unit currently uses VoiceXML, how do you use it (select all that apply):

	We author VoiceXML applications for our own company.
	We author VoiceXML applications for other companies.
	We provide VoiceXML application hosting services for other companies.
	We provide VoiceXML platforms (hardware/software) to other companies.
	We sell VoiceXML tools.
	We provide VoiceXML training.
	We don't use VoiceXML at all right now.
	Other (please specify):

1-2. If your company/business unit authors VoiceXML applications, how many applications have you written that are currently in service?

	Yes, we author applications and there are currently in service
	No, we don't author applications.

1-3. If your company/business unit authors VoiceXML applications, how many applications do you plan to have in service a year from now?

	Yes, we author applications and there will be a total of  in service a year from now.
	No, we don't author applications.

1-4. If your company/business unit has announced any deployed VoiceXML applications you would like to report here, please list the top ones.  Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each.  Please keep each entry to under 100 words.  (We won't report on them without getting your advanced approval.)

1-5. If you know of other companies' publicly-announced VoiceXML applications that you wish to draw our attention to, please list them here.  Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each.  Please keep each entry to under 100 words.  (We won't report on them without getting the necessary company approvals.)

1-6. If your company/business unit DOES NOT use VoiceXML currently, when do you plan to:

Next 6 months.
Next year.
Next two years.
Not sure
Never
Not applicable -- we use VoiceXML

1-7. If you answered "Never" on question 1-6, what are the reasons?

	No longer interested in voice web.
	We never used VoiceXML and use instead.
	We used to use VoiceXML, but now use instead.
	Other (please specify)?
	Not applicable -- we use, or plan to use, VoiceXML

1-8. If you answered "never" on question 1-6, why do you maintain your VoiceXML Forum membership?
  

2. Your Company's Use of SALT

Please give us an idea of how much your company uses SALT.

2-1. If your company/business unit currently uses SALT, how do you use it (select all that apply):

	We author SALT applications for our own company.
	We author SALT applications for other companies.
	We provide SALT application hosting services for other companies.
	We provide SALT platforms (hardware/software) to other companies.
	We sell SALT tools.
	We provide SALT training.
	We don't use SALT at all right now.
	Other (please specify):

2-2. If your company/business unit authors SALT applications, how many applications have you written that are currently in service?

	Yes, we author applications and there are currently in service
	No, we don't author applications.

2-3. If your company/business unit authors SALT applications, how many applications do you plan to have in service a year from now?

	Yes, we author applications and there will be a total of  in service a year from now.
	No, we don't author applications.

2-4. If your company/business unit has announced any deployed SALT applications you would like to report here, please list the top ones.  Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each.  Please keep each entry to under 100 words.

2-5. If you know of other companies' publicly-announced SALT applications that you wish to draw our attention to, please list them here. Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each. Please keep each entry to under 100 words.

2-6. If your company/business unit DOES NOT use SALT currently, when do you plan to:

Next 6 months.
Next year.
Next two years.
Not sure.
Never.
Not applicable -- we currently use SALT.

3. Strengths and Weaknesses of VoiceXML 2.0

Please give us your candid feedback on VoiceXML 2.0.  We'll use this to provide input to the W3C as it begins to consider what's important in VoiceXML 3.0.

3-1. Based on the experience of your company/business unit and its partners/customers, what are the top STRENGTHS of VoiceXML 2.0?

3-2. Based on the experience of your company/business unit and its partners/customers, what are the top WEAKNESSES of VoiceXML 2.0?

Some have felt that the VoiceXML 2.0's Form Interpretation Algorithm (FIA) is too restrictive, and that a future version of VoiceXML should allow authors to specify their own FIAs when necessary or convenient.  The current FIA (or something very similar) would remain the default.

3-3. If your company/business unit develops applications, would customizable FIAs add value to the applications that your company will develop in the future?

	Always (in 100 percent of the applications you develop)
	Often (in 60-90 percent of the applications)
	Sometimes (in 20 to 50 percent of the applications)
	Hardly Ever (in 10 percent or fewer of the applications)
	Not applicable/Don't know

3-4. If your company/business unit provides VoiceXML platforms, do you think a customizable FIA architecture would make your VoiceXML platform more valuable to your customers?

Absolutely
Somewhat
Neutral
Not at all
Not applicable/Don't know

3-5. What kind of changes to the FIA would you want to make (select all that apply)?

	No FIA changes.
	Augment the original FIA with callbacks. Callbacks are defined at platform level and referenceable by the application author. For example, the ability to register a platform-defined 'nextField()' function.
	Augment the original FIA with callbacks. Callbacks are defined at application level (e.g. ECMAScript) by the application author. For example, the ability to register an application-defined 'nextField()' function.
	No FIA changes. Instead, permit new dialog constructs (elements + attributes + behavior description) to be loaded as modules. <menu> is already such an example. Another example might be <list>.
	Same as above selection, except that these dialog constructs are only defined by the W3C. Platform-defined constructs would not be acceptable as part of the standard.
	Other:

Some believe that VoiceXML 2.0's control of media resources is too high level.  VoiceXML 2.1 may add audio output bookmarking to track how much of a prompt has been played before the user interrupted it, but there may be additional low-level media resource control features needed.

3-6. Are additional language features for low level control of media resources important to your company/business unit?

Absolutely
Somewhat
Neutral
Not at all
Not applicable/Don't know

3-7. What low level media resource control features are important?
      

Some people think that VoiceXML 2.0 should be extended to better communicate with external agents (such as a CCXML call control interpreter).

3-8. Is the ability to communicate with external agents important to your company/business unit?

Absolutely
Somewhat
Neutral
Not at all
Not applicable/Don't know

The current philosophy in VoiceXML 2.0 is that most call control functions like conferencing should be done by an external CCXML agent, not in the VoiceXML 2.0 browser.

3-9. Is it important to your company/business unit to have call control in VoiceXML versus CCXML?

Absolutely (add more call control features)
Somewhat (keep the current set at least)
Neutral
Not at all (remove the transfer element)
Not applicable/Don't know

3-10. Is it important to your company/business unit to have add speaker verification markup to VoiceXML 3.0?

Absolutely
Somewhat
Neutral
Not at all
Not applicable/Don't know

3-11. If your company/business unit authors VoiceXML applications, what extensions to VoiceXML 2.0 do you use the most?  (Please consider any extensions that make use of <object>.)

3-12. If your company/business unit sells VoiceXML platforms, what extensions to VoiceXML 2.0 do your customers most use or request?  (Please consider any extensions that make use of <object>.)

3-13. Which current proprietary extensions ought to become part of the VoiceXML 3.0 standard?

3-14. How much backward compatibility with VoiceXML 2.0 should VoiceXML 3.0 have?

	Full syntactic and semantic compatibility.
	Backward compatibility so if you just remove the VoiceXML 3.0 changes, you have VoiceXML 2.0.
	Convertible compatibility so that authoring tools can be used to convert existing 2.0 code to 3.0 code. Alternatively, implementations could provide runtime conversion.
	Tools that support converting VoiceXML 2 applications to VoiceXML 3.0.
	Look and feel compatibility (i.e., in the default configuration, it looks like VoiceXML 2.0).
	No compatibility is needed.

4. VoiceXML 2.0 Platforms

4-1. What factors are important when selecting a VoiceXML 2.0 platform?  Number the top three factors from 1 to 3:

Low cost/port
Speech recognizer(s) used (recognition quality, language coverage, etc.)
Text to speech used (language coverage, quality, voices, etc.)
Debugging support
Conformance to VoiceXML 2.0 and related standards.
Capacity
Reliability
Availability
OA&M capabilities
Vendor (reputation, quality, financial condition, etc.)

4-2. Which ASR (automatic speech recognition) systems do you use?

Vendor	Product Version

4-3. Which TTS (text-to-speech) systems do you use?

Vendor	Product Version

5. VoiceXML 2.0 Conformance

5-1. If your company/business unit authors VoiceXML 2.0 applications, do you target more than one platform?

Yes
No

5-2. If you answered yes to question 5-1, for what fraction of your company's application portfolio must you maintain separate versions for each supported platform?

All or nearly all
None or only a few
Somewhere in between

5-3.How important is it to be able to port your applications to platforms from multiple vendors without change?

Very Important
Important
Somewhat important
Not important
Not applicable/Don't know

5-4.  If your company/business unit authors VoiceXML 2.0 applications for multiple platforms, which areas of conformance impact you and how severely?

Area	Impact
VoiceXML 2.0 interpreter	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
SRGS grammar processing	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
SSML text-to-speech markup	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
Platform-dependent <property> elements	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
Platform-dependent <object> elements	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
Platform-dependent features	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable/Don't Know
Other:	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable
Other:	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable
Other:	Select Serious Moderate Slight None Not Applicable

6.  Multimodal

Multimodal user interfaces combine several input and output "modes", typically a visual mode (phone keypad and display, e.g.) and a voice mode (audio output, audio input).  Other modes such as pen and haptic may be used too.

While multimodal markup standards are still in flux, the W3C has received two proposals, XHTML + Voice Profile (X+V) and Speech Application Language Tags (SALT).

6-1. Does your company/business unit use X+V (select all that apply)?

	Yes, for a deployed application
	Yes, for a trial application
	Yes, for prototyping and/or learning the technology
	No, but we plan to in the next 12 months
	No, and we have no current plans to

6-2. If your company/business unit authors X+V applications, how many applications have you written that are currently in service?

	Yes, we author applications and there are: currently in service.
	No, we don't author applications.

6-3. If your company/business unit authors X+V applications, how many applications do you plan to have in service a year from now?

	Yes, we author applications and there will be a total of: in service a year from now.
	No, we don't author applications.

6-4. If your company/business unit has announced any deployed X+V applications you would like to report here, please list the top ones.  Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each.  Please keep each entry to under 100 words.  (We won't report on them without getting your advanced approval.)

6-5. If you know of other companies' publicly-announced X+V applications that you wish to draw our attention to, please list them here.  Provide a name, short description, URL, and other interesting tidbits for each.  Please keep each entry to under 100 words.  (We won't report on them without getting the necessary company approvals.)

6-6. If your company/business unit uses SALT (or plans to use SALT), how would you use it?

	For multimodal applications only
	For voice-only applications only
	For both multimodal and voice-only applications
	Not applicable

6-7. If your company/business unit is working with multimodality, what devices are you interested in (select all that apply)?

	PCs
	PDAs
	Smartphones
	Mobile phones
	Other:

6-8. X+V uses VoiceXML to drive the voice modality while SALT uses ECMAScript and a set of new XML tags.  How important is it to your company/business unit that a future multimodal markup language standard builds on the VoiceXML 2.0 standard?

	Very Important
	Important
	Somewhat important
	Not important
	Not applicable/Don't know

6-9. VoiceXML may be modularized by the W3C. If so, what profiles would be the most useful to your company/business unit?

	Server and client profiles.
	Profiles for voice only and multimodal.
	Profiles for specific devices (e.g., a profile with no call transfer elements)
	Other profiles
	No opinion/Don't know