There has been a lot of speculation regarding the impact of Google's entry into the voicemail transcription market with their new Google Voice initiative which is based on the Grand Central acquisition of almost two years. The major player in voicemail transcription is SpinVox and theirs is the first service I have ever tested. I have continually been impressed with the company because they have taken speech-to-text in many directions with services which can integrate into blogs, blasts, IM and social networks.
I asked the company for official comments on the news regrading the world's search leader entering their space and this was the response:
Google is entering a marketplace that continues to be led by SpinVox, the world's largest privately-held speech technology company. We're excited by the launch of Google Voice because it will demonstrate the benefits of speech-to-text conversion and validate its deployment as a network service to an increased audience. We have already launched carrier-grade services with 13 operators - including recently with Skype - on five continents and SpinVox is in use by in excess of 30 million users. SpinVox's 97 percent accuracy in conversion is now the benchmark around the world. - Christina Domecq, co-founder and CEO of SpinVox
In the end, Christina is right and conversion accuracy will be an important factor for many business users and it remains to be seen just how accurate Google can be in comparison to the competition. I am patiently waiting for an account so I can give you my feedback.
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Google Voice - the new threat to the reputation of speech recognition system
Google posted last week the new enhancements for GrandCentral and actually its evolution to Google Voice. It is in general an application to better manage your voice communications.
http://speechanalytics.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-voice-new-threat-to-reputation.html