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Software-powered communications can streamline interactions between people and machines by reducing human latency when a business process is waiting for a human decision, or by extending the reach of your application to a phone or mobile device.

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 supports the development of server-side, middle-tier applications targeting Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. It includes a SIP stack, a media stack, and powerful speech engines for both automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis (TTS).

UCMA 2.0 provides the following capabilities:

  • Alerts or notification
  • Surveys
  • Inbound speech technology enabled interactive voice response applications
  • Automated agents, also known as query response bots

Amongst the more advanced developer scenarios that it enables are: Automated Call DistributorsConferencing ServicesCustom client gatewaysInteractive Voice Response platforms, and Speech servers using the Microsoft ASR and TTS engines.

The UCMA 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit) abstracts away most of the Office Communications Server SIP/SIMPLE-based protocols by offering an API that exposes almost all of the features of the protocol, but is simpler to understand and use.

The UCMA 2.0 Speech API is a server-grade speech API that allows developers to build multi-channel speech recognition and speech synthesis enabled applications using Microsoft state-of-the-art speech technology. The UCMA 2.0 Speech API supports 12 languages, including English (North America, United Kingdom), French (France, Canada), German, American Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

The UCMA 2.0 Workflow API is a higher API abstraction layer of the UCMA Core and Speech APIs. It adds unified communications Windows Workflow Activities to the .NET 3.5 SP1 Workflow Foundation for querying Presence and IM or speech technology enabled dialogs in Workflow-based applications built, for example, on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007.

Both Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 contain the Speech Server (2007) server role. Speech Server (2007) is the IVR platform in the Microsoft Unified Communications Platform. It includes a comprehensive toolset for building speech-enabled self-service applications, and it supports Speech Recognition and Speech Synthesis in five languages: English (North America, United Kingdom), American Spanish, Canadian French, and German. Additionally, it supports DTMF applications and Speech Synthesis in nine more languages: Australian English, French French, Castilian Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

Speech Server (2007) Developer Edition is available as a free download at the Microsoft Download Center.