Today from the SpeechTEK 2006 conference in New York, Microsoft Corp. announced that the full capabilities of Microsoft® Speech Server 2007 will be integrated into Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, extending the company’s commitment to unified communications and breaking down today’s silos of instant messaging, Internet Protocol telephony, voice response, audioconferencing and videoconferencing. At the show Microsoft also demonstrated Windows® Speech Recognition, which will be available in Windows Vista™ in eight languages, marking the first time a Microsoft Windows operating system will include speech recognition technologies, so the user can issue commands and dictate text in applications.

Microsoft announced Office Communications Server 2007 earlier this summer as a key component of the company’s unified communications road map. Office Communications Server 2007 is a real-time communications hub, enabling people to connect to colleagues and information quickly and easily within familiar applications, devices and networks. The addition of speech capabilities gives developers the opportunity to create new and powerful communications applications or extend existing applications using an integrated set of application programming interfaces (API) and by extending existing applications for Office Communications Server 2007, enabling new revenue streams for their businesses.