Alpha Software Blog



The Future of Voice Input for Business Applications

We’re committed to constant innovation at Alpha Software, because we know you are, too. We’re big believers in the innovate-or-die ethos. And we do more than just talk about it — we staff for it. That’s why our CTO is Dan Bricklin, one of the most innovative thinkers and designers of technology over the last 40 years. As I’ve blogged previously in my post, “Dan Bricklin Continues Quest To Democratize Technology,” Dan came up with the idea for the world’s first electronic worksheet back in 1979, and helped launched the personal computer revolution with VisiCalc. And he didn’t stop there. He’s been transforming computing ever since, for example, helping us launch the low code-no code rapid mobile app development tools (RMAD) revolution that allows people with little or no technical experience to write apps.In a lot of ways Dan’s job here is not just Chief Technical Officer, but also Chief Innovation Officer. He spends a great deal of time thinking about new ways for people to use technology, and then helping build products based on that. Now, Dan is thinking about the future of voice input for business applications.

Alpha Software CTO Dan Bricklin looks at the future of voice input for business applicationsRecently, Dan turned his attention to the latest voice user interfaces (VUIs) like Amazon’s Alexa, and wrote an in-depth blog about their future. The post “Revenge of the CLI: A transformation through voice and AI,” is exceedingly thought-provoking. He starts off outlining the different types of user interfaces throughout the history of computing, including punch cards, the command line interface (CLI), the graphical user interface (GUI), VUIs, and others. Then he makes a remarkable observation: “I have been struck by similarities between CLI and the voice input typified by Amazon Alexa (which I'll call "VUI" for Voice User Interface, a common choice). I see how many of the strong points about CLI are shared with this new voice style, and some of the weaknesses are lessened.”

There’s far too much detail about this to summarize here, but he notes that VUIs allow you to easily issue very precise commands very quickly, in the same way that CLIs do. But they have benefits beyond CLIs, of course, notably simple voice input rather than having to memorize complex commands and type them in on a keyboard.

Dan believes that Alexa-like VUIs will find uses well-beyond the home and will become an increasingly important interface for business applications. As an example, he points to an application written by Rhino Fleet Tracking that lets companies perform GPS tracking with Alexa.

To prove the point even more, Dan wrote a simple VUI business app. Here’s what he did, in his words, “I programmed Amazon Alexa to interface with a simple data capture system with mobile forms input to get totals and subtotals of sales. It was surprisingly easy to get results that many people have found instructive with regards to the potential.” To check out the app, head to his blog post, and you’ll find a YouTube demonstration at the bottom.

Dan’s conclusion about VUIs: “It may be worthwhile trying to build a simple VUI if the application warrants it. For some applications this form of control could be the dominant one for some users. I hope that some of the ideas in this essay can help you determine the ones for which it might be worth the try.”

If you’re interested in the future of mobile and computer interfaces, check out his blog for one of the more interesting reads you’ll come across in a long time.

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About Author

Amy Groden-Morrison
Amy Groden-Morrison

Amy Groden-Morrison has served more than 15 years in marketing communications leadership roles at companies such as TIBCO Software, RSA Security and Ziff-Davis. Most recently she was responsible for developing marketing programs that helped achieve 30%+ annual growth rate for analytics products at a $1Bil, NASDAQ-listed business integration Software Company. Her past accomplishments include establishing the first co-branded technology program with CNN, launching an events company on the NYSE, rebranding a NASDAQ-listed company amid a crisis, and positioning and marketing a Boston-area startup for successful acquisition. Amy currently serves as a Healthbox Accelerator Program Mentor, Marketing Committee Lead for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Launch Smart Clinics, and on the organizing team for Boston TechJam. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

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The Alpha platform is the only unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct “no-code” and “low-code” components. Using the Alpha TransForm no-code product, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the Alpha Anywhere low-code environment to develop complex web or mobile business apps from scratch, integrate data with existing systems of record and workflows (including data collected via Alpha TransForm), and add additional security or authentication requirements to protect corporate data.

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