PLENTY OF 'FOOT TRAFFIC' IN NEW YORK

August 2, 2005

Chris Crosby made up his mind regarding next year’s SpeechTek after exhibiting at the event for the first time: he’s coming back.

“It’s been good, there’s been a lot of traffic with a lot of techies here and it’s been better than we expected,” said Crosby, who is the president/CEO of 2-year-old company Latigent, a Chicago-based firm that provides software for call centers. “It’s a great networking event, more for partner opportunities than user opportunities. There are a lot of integration opportunities.”

People he has met with include three prospective partners along with what he characterized as four or five “hot prospects.” Blue.vue is the application that he has been demonstrating in New York.

Jeff Macomber used the words “pretty good foot traffic” and “exciting conversations” Tuesday when asked to describe the event.

“There’s a level of energy in terms of the number of companies entering the speech market and new developments in technology,” said Macomber, chief architect at NetByTel, a developer of hosted speech applications.

This is his fourth time at the event, which he described as the best attended by far of the four.

“This show for NetByTel is where we meet resellers and potential partners,” Macomber said. “We’re booked all day today and tomorrow with about 10 or 12 meetings with potential partners.”

Leigh Ann Clavenna said the show was providing “quality traffic.”

“I didn’t expect this much,” said Clavenna, regional marketing manager for Montreal-based telephony hardware vendor Eicon Networks. “We’ve seen some pretty strong prospects.”

The company was offering free training on its Diva Server regarding installation, configuration and how to develop applications with the company’s software development kit.

She said about “30 really strong prospects” had come in contact with the company, with an overall total of 50 or 60 expected through tomorrow.

“This is a partner-centered show,” she said. “We’ve got about 10 meetings set up with prospective partners.”

And what is the goal of those meetings?

“To get half [to become] new technology partners,” she said.

By Glenn J. Kalinoski, Executive Editor, Customer Inter@ction Solutions