By using IBM WebSphere Application Server middleware, the solutions would allow contact centers to leverage open standards, including Voice XML and J2EE, according to an IBM announcement. The solutions will be designed to let contact centers offer services to customers such as transferring money from a checking account, submitting insurance claims, changing cellular phone plans, making hotel and car reservations or finding the nearest store location using speech automation, functions that traditionally require a live agent in a contact center.

"Speech is an important part of a company's contact center and customer care infrastructure," said Bruce Morse, IBM Vice President, Contact Center Solutions. "By using speech within the contact center, as well as to access enterprise applications, companies are improving the customer experience while driving down costs."

"Cisco and IBM are raising the bar on self-service with new solutions that provide an easier, more cost-effective way for businesses to deploy speech applications enhancing automated communications," said Laurent Philonenko, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Customer Contact Business Unit. 

In addition to IBM's WebSphere Application Server software, customers can use WebSphere Business Integration Server, DB2 Universal Database, IBM Workplace and Tivoli Identity Manager software to enable contact center integration to back end systems as well as customer insight through data analytics.

Cisco also will support IBM's Reusable Dialog Components initiative. RDCs are an open source, Java-based set of pre-built components that aid in the rapid development of speech applications. By offering software components using standards and programming models that Java developers are familiar with, the initiative has opened up speech development to millions of Java programmers, and speeded integration of Web and voice applications into the mainstream business infrastructure. IBM contributed RDCs to the Apache Software Foundation last year.