Cambridge VoiceTech, a provider of VoiceXML tools and solutions, offers a Windows desktop development environment for VoiceXML, the language being used throughout the industry for advanced speech-recognition applications.

Cambridge VoiceTech Voice Studio lets you get feature-rich voice applications up and running quickly -- in as little as four-to-six weeks, Cambridge said. You can develop VoiceXML 1.0-compliant applications without additional hardware or software. The studio-style development tool gives you immediate feedback and real-time debugging capabilities.

You can download a free evaluation edition of the product. This version integrates Microsoft's text-to-speech capability to let programmers create full-scale voice applications on their Windows NT desktop or laptop machine. They can then port the programs to the enterprise telephony environment using a VoiceXML engine (Cambridge offers such an engine -- Voice Gateway). The product is independent of hardware and speech engine, and complies with the VoiceXML 1.0 standard. It also features a proprietary scripting language that lets you integrate other systems from within the VoiceXML document.

In addition, Cambridge Voice Script, the company's proprietary extensible script execution engine is tightly integrated in the VoiceXML document. Voice Script gives direct access to legacy systems, ODBC data sources, Internet content, local files, POP3, SMTP, and XML data sources from within VoiceXML documents.

Besides developer tools, Cambridge offers voice automation and other enterprise functions for call centers, helping them cut operational costs.