Date: Dec. 15, 2000
Link: http://www.computertelephony.com/article/CTM20000927S0003
Source Author or Organization: Chris Bajorek, ComputerTelephony.com

This article addresses the benefits of Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VoiceXML), and why it may make sense to retrofit existing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems with VoiceXML.

The author gives a short tutorial introduction to basic XML and the inner workings of the VoiceXML architecture, and then looks at the benefits of VoiceXML's intrinsic ability to access information stored on or accessed through a corporate web server.

Also discussed are: the benefits of direct database connectivity via VoiceXML scripts, productivity gains from using existing web application development tools for development of VoiceXML-based IVR applications (rather than low-level IVR platform or database access tools), and VoiceXML's ability to be portable across web server and IVR platforms.