For most enterprises, managing their own IT needs is a complicated and often painstaking process. To avoid this impediment, many companies have recently made the decision to eliminate on-premise implementations and have their technology requirements handled by an offsite provider through a cloud-based solution.

In an effort to develop a better understanding regarding the future of cloud computing, TMC CEO Rich Tehrani recently conducted an interview with Marcello Typrin, vice president of marketing and product management for Yap (News - Alert), a provider of fully automated, cloud-based speech recognition services.

During the conversation, Typrin also touched upon social media and how it has transformed the way that businesses communicate with their customer base.  

Typrin and his colleagues from Yap will be keynote speakers at ITEXPO (News - Alert) West 2010, which will be kicking off on October 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Their session will explore a number of different subjects, including the benefits and pitfalls of recent advances in voicemail technology.

For more information, check out the exclusive interview below.

What is the most significant trend in communications today? Why?

The answer: cloud computing.  Everything from voice communications (e.g., virtual and hosted PBX (News - Alert)) to business process like customer relationship management (e.g., salesforece.com) is migrating from complex on-premise implementations to cloud-based solutions.  Speech recognition is following this trend as well. The traditional approach to implementing speech recognition technologies is to embed it into a host computer. The host computer could be an IVR system or a mobile device.  Integration into the host is complex and time-consuming.  For example, embedding a speech recognition system into a specific model of a mobile phone’s operating system can take over 2 man-years of development – each additional model requires more development.  This model does not scale well. By putting speech recognition in the cloud, services can access high accuracy speech recognition using well-understood web services.

When will unified communications go mainstream?

One of the key user experience drivers for unified voice and data experiences is taking communications in audio format and converting it into text. For example, when voice message are available as text, email inboxes can be used to read voicemail messages, search content of voice messages, sort, etc.  Now, voice messages can be managed and accessed just like emails. 

Has social media changed how you communicate with customers?

Yes. One of the key elements of social media is its asynchronous nature. When we post a message to a social network, we are not expecting a real time dialog.  Responses sometimes are provided hours or days later, if at all.  Voice communications (i.e., phone calls) on the other hand are real-time conversations.  What this means is that we are not inclined to use our voices for asynchronous interactions.  But this is changing.  With voice-to-text capabilities like those provided by Yap, you can now use your voice to compose a message that can be posted to Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter or any other social network as easily (if not more easily) than using text input.

What impact has the growth of cloud-based services had on your business?

Yap is the very definition of a cloud-based service.  With the move towards cloud-based infrastructures, Yap’s business is taking off.

You are speaking at ITEXPO West 2010. What is your session about?

Yap will be speaking about Voicemail-to-Text.

What will attendees take away from your session? 

This session will discuss market research around user sentiment towards voicemail (hint: most say they like voicemail, but are looking for more convenient ways to access and manipulate messages). Speakers will also explore technology trends that are making new user voicemail experiences possible, including the benefits and drawbacks of each, and how they will impact service provider business models.