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Show The Salt Lake Tribune BUSINESS Friday, Dec D5 CENTERPIECE CONSUMER CORNER Urn BRIERS ae eevee Voice Recognition Software Comesof Age — Drugstore Sales to Top Butbusinessesthatare using it don’t wanttorushintofull implementation and alienate customers BY JON VAN HICAGO TRIBUNE $100B for First Time NEWYORK — Drugstore sales will surgepast $100billionforthe irst time this year, driven by the gingpopulation, wider reimburse. ment for prescription drugs and srowing demandfor herbal 1 reme- dies anddietary supplements. But industry executives wot they don’t have enough pharma. cists to keepup. To reduce tines at the pharmacy ounter, the industry wants to hire moretechniciansto fill prescrip. ion orders. But first the industry must overcomelawsin about half the states that limit the ratio of technicians to pharmacists. This is notacrisis yet, butit is slowly becoming one,” said Leon- ird Genovese, president of Geno- ese Drug Stores and chairman of he National Association of Chain Drug Stores. The association estimates that prescriptionswill increase 44 percent to 4 billion by 2005, During the sametime, though, the number of pharmacists is expected to rise by less than6 percent. Philip Morris to Spend 5100Mto Turn Off Kids NEW YORK — Philip Morris. thenation’s biggest tobacco compa ny, plansto spend$ to Ture potential customers, but to drive them aw ‘The campaign targetis kids, and the creator of the Marlboro Man ays it plansto convince themthat smokingisn’t cool. But crities say Philip Morrisis nly trying to buff its image and that 2 T way to discourage youngsters from smoking would be if it dumpedthe macho cowboy as theicon forits biggest brand. The Philip Morris campaign kicks off Monday with ads that get the tobacco maker's nameintelevision ads for the first time sincecig- irette advertising on broadcast outlets was bannedin 1971 Philip Morris spokeswoman EL len Merlo said her company wantd to reverse the recent reported ise in youth smoking. Building a machinethat talks to peopleis only the beginning, it turns out. Thebig chal lenge is figuring out when it should talk and whenit shouldshut up so peoplewill like and use it After decades of research at Bell Labs and development at Lucent Technologies Inc voice recognition technology is pretty much a fact of life, said Richard Di Pietro, Lucent's technology planningdirector. Its applications require development, though “As the power of computerchips has gone upandcosts have gone down, we've gotten to the point whereour voice technology can do Just about anything we want,” Di Pietrosaid We're now in market testing — not technol- ogy testing — to determinewhat kindof prod ucts people want As Lucent does show-and-tell with phone service providers such as Ameritech Corp and others, it oftenfinds there is interest in a little helping of voice recognition instead of a wholeplateful, at least for now Phone companies andothers that trot out new services to consumers evidently don’t want to put off people who find new technol. ogy too much of a shift from the waythey are used to doing things. Anearly voicerecognition applic: ion, for instance, is Ameritech’s recently launched Privacy Manager. the s ervice intended to help consumers calls from telemarketers or others who their identity to Caller ID Privacy Manager just uses asliver ofour technology,” Di Pietrosaid Whena customer gets a call from someone whosephonenumber doesn’t comeup on Call er ID. ey Manager's technology inter venes to ask thecaller to identify himself be fore the call will be put through. If he declines, the call is terminatedbefore it rings in the consumer's home. Basically all Privacy Manager does is determine if the caller says something once he's askedto identify himself,” said Di Pietro Lucent envisionsits voice recognition tech nology — dubbed “Lucy beingused to cre assistants hone that can provide lots of service to customers. These would werklike a combined voice mail and phone forwarding service that interacts with spoken commands instead of buttons punched on atouch-tone pad Sharon Mahoney, manager a Lu ent speech technology s so that as Lucy is inat any time andtell her what to do,” Mz oney said This means you don't have to just listen as she goes We've designed th speaking, youcanba: acquisition of three send it off as text e-mail Lucy couldtell its master that he has four messagesonvoice mai). speaking thename of This enables theuser to pick the most ur other grocery chains, including Smith's Food and Drug Center's Inc. of Salt Lake — one is called Wildfire — are already on the market, but Di Pietro said the existing prod- City. busy executives who travel a lot mergein 1999. Products with capabilities similar to Lucy’s ucts arefairly expensive and geared toward A Lucypersonal-assistant product Inc., could be and attractive Roberts’ Small Business Ac- to the mass market Lucent won't market voice recognition ap: plications directly to consumers, but rather will maketechnology available to phone com: panies such as Ameritech that in turn craft their ownspecific products. Lucent also markets technology to companies that counting & Payroll has movedits offices to 2825 KE. Cottonwood Parkway, Suite 570, Salt LakeCity The company provides bookkeeping, payroll and tax services to small companies aren't member of Lucent's technical staff “or example, “banks andinsurance compa nies want toverify your identity whenyou dial in to get information about your account said Sukkar. “Withthis technology, they'll be will probably still Fred Meyer and Kroger’ the nation’s largest grocery chain, recently announcedplans to lable as early as next fall in a formthat is intended to be cheap able to do that by analyzing your voice. They each caller gent message to review while postponing the others rather thanlistening to each onein turn, as usually happenswith voice mail, said rimarily from through the whole menu phone service providers, said Rafid Sukkar, a It even couldread e-mail text to the custom er, take downhis reply over the phone and mequarter ompany an- noun: lionincrease Phonex Corp.. a Midvale- based developer of wireless telephone extension systems, announced a new version of its wireless modemjack. The Phonex PX-441 Secure Wireless Modem Jack offers afast methodof install- ask you to give your moth. ing secure-impulse PPV Telco re- the voice patternalonewill be your real iden: tification. turn path in multiple-unit dwell- er’s maiden nameasafurther precaution, but TRADEWINDS ings without having to hard wire telephone jacks. Novell Inc., a Provo-based pro- vider of computer-networkingsoftware, said it has signed an agreement to license and ribute Compiled by Steven Oberbeck Pervasive Software vasive. SQL database product will be distrit Jason Turner has been hired as a financial analyst in the medical Novell's NetWare network operat- ing system software department of CIGNA ‘are of Utah. Herecently ty with a bachelor’s degreein economics andhealth administration andpolicy graduated from Stanford Universi- Richard J. Sperry has been elected to the boardof trustees of Archer Turner cently transferredtoSalt Lake City rector. Most recently, she was regional marketingdirector for TCI Media Services, Roe Mountain from theSeattleoffice. the Utah Hospitals & Health Sys- tems Association, Sperry is associatevice president forhealthsciences and associate dean of the University of Utah School of Medicine. Healsoserves as professorof anesthesiology. Sally Archer has joined Van- Pinkerman guard Media as client services di KUTVand marketing manager at the Deseret News a Stephanie Pinkerman has joinedOffice Team, Salt LakeCity as a staffing manager. Shejoined the companyin June 1998 andre Evolution Ski Co. It La City, has named Kim F. Huffman as its director of sales. He has worked in the ski industry since 1975, He has heldavarie’ f mar- keting and sales positions with companies such as Salomon North America, Marker USA and Kastle USA. E Boller has been hiredas the company’s new demo/ski tech- Huffman Boller nician and retail buyer. He has workedas a salesman, buyer and ski shoptechnician at ski shops in New York statesince 1988 Ann Marie Sulzenhas been appointed real estate disbursement officer in the construction loan department at Zions Bank, Salt Lake City. She has beenwith Zions two years. Beforejoining the bank, she librarian at Montar: ee Schoolin Barstow, ( alif. Romano's Macaroni Grill, of Dallas, opensits first Utah restau- rant Dec. 14 in the Shoppesat Riverwoods, 4801 N. University Ave. Provo. Andin January, Rom will open in Murray at 102 F chester St. across from Fashion Place Mall. Sports Rack Vehicle Outfit- ters, based in Sacramento, Calif. has openedin the LakeValley at 6810 S. State St. The store is the company’s 10th retail outlet for racks and accessories such as hitch- es VOLVO TAKE AN ALL WHEEL-DRIVE SYSTEM THAT AUTOMATICALLY TRANSFERS POWER TO THE WHEELS WITH THE MOST TRACTION. ADD ANTI-LOCK BRAKES, TRACTION CONTROL AND A 100-WATT, SIX SPEAKER STEREO WITH THE VOLVO S70 ALL WHEEL DRIVE YOU WON'T JUST STAY ON THE ROAD, YOU'LL BETTER ENJOY THE TRIP. DRIVE SAFELY SEE YOURSALT LAKE SITY VOLVO RETAILER KEN GARFF VOLVO 525 South State Strost (801) 297-7108 € 1988 Volvo Cars of North Arvenca, inc. Drive Safely is trademark of Vel Cara o! North Amenca, Inc. Alwayn remember tow 4 1 www.volvocars.com . = 4 |
