Rating: 
Summary: The Best VoiceXML Reference Available
Review: Although this book has only been published for a few weeks, I have already purchased 20 copies and am using it for my VoiceXML classes. It is a very readable, very thorough, and accurate overview of this new technology, VoiceXML. The technology itself is destined to forever change the way we interact with the World Wide Web, and this book will certainly facilitate the process.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very informative
Review: As a VoiceXML developer, I looked forward to this book. I was disappointed. Too much time was spent speculating on Version 2.0 and not enough time explaining Version 1.0. If you are looking to learn VoiceXML this is not the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Complete Coverage
Review: As one of the inventors of VoiceXML, I've spent 3+ years explaining voice markup. I just wish I had had this book to hand out to people. This book covers the basics of all the various technologies that come together to make VoiceXML what it is. Whether your background is Speech, Telephony, Web technologies, or even all of the above, you will learn something by reading this book. The coverage of the VoiceXML concepts is also very helpful and will steer you around many of the early mis-steps that developers make when first using VoiceXML. If there is any place to find fault, it's with the reference material vis-a-vis current implementations. As others have observed, the book discusses VoiceXML 1.0 and the 2.0 draft. In the real world, it's my impression that very few interpreters ever did or ever will implement exactly VoiceXML 1.0, nor does it seem likely that the particular draft version of VoiceXML 2.0 discussed in the book has been or will ever be implemented. The harsh reality is that there are many VoiceXML vendors, and they are mostly somewhere between the 1.0 and 2.0 specs. I think this is good for the industry, but it does make the author's life more difficult!
Rating: 
Summary: Useful for those who know XML but are new to telephony
Review: Bob Edgar's VoiceXML Handbook is truely visionary! Digital Voice Technologies (dvtinc.com) purchased a copy before we began our VoiceXML 2.0 Interpreter project and within the first week of reading this book, we decided to purchase 20 copies of it for our development team. Because of Bob Edgar's book, DVT was able to build and deploy our VoiceXML 2.0 Interpreter before the VoiceXML 2.0 specs were ever released! Digital Voice Technologies considers Bob's book a five star reference tool and feels that it will be a best-seller as more people learn of VXML. Imagine a World Powered by Voice...DVT!
Rating:
Summary: Visionary!
Review: Bob Edgar's VoiceXML Handbook is truely visionary! Digital Voice Technologies (dvtinc.com) purchased a copy before we began our VoiceXML 2.0 Interpreter project and within the first week of reading this book, we decided to purchase 20 copies of it for our development team. Because of Bob Edgar's book, DVT was able to build and deploy our VoiceXML 2.0 Interpreter before the VoiceXML 2.0 specs were ever released! Digital Voice Technologies considers Bob's book a five star reference tool and feels that it will be a best-seller as more people learn of VXML. Imagine a World Powered by Voice...DVT!
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Overview
Review: I am director of user interface design at Audiopoint in Fairfax, Virginia -- a voice portal/voice technology company. I work mostly in human factors, not programming. This book is exactly what I've been looking for, because it gives, I feel, an excellent overview of the many kinds of systems, software, and hardware that are involved in the work I do. I agree with another reviewer, who said that the author clearly states that not all the examples will work in every case, for various reasons. The great plus for me is that, even though my training is not for the most part in technology, I could still understand the book. The author takes you, usually, from the very beginning, and gives you the big, simple picture, which is crucial to have fixed firmly in your mind. This book is making it much easier for me to understand our IT people and talk with techies, and visualize various products which I'd like to see our company launch. So I give this book top rating....
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Overview
Review: I am director of user interface design at Audiopoint in Fairfax, Virginia -- a voice portal/voice technology company. I work mostly in human factors, not programming. This book is exactly what I've been looking for, because it gives, I feel, an excellent overview of the many kinds of systems, software, and hardware that are involved in the work I do. I agree with another reviewer, who said that the author clearly states that not all the examples will work in every case, for various reasons. The great plus for me is that, even though my training is not for the most part in technology, I could still understand the book. The author takes you, usually, from the very beginning, and gives you the big, simple picture, which is crucial to have fixed firmly in your mind. This book is making it much easier for me to understand our IT people and talk with techies, and visualize various products which I'd like to see our company launch. So I give this book top rating....
Rating: 
Summary: very poor book
Review: I am very disappointed after buying this book. Lot of examples don't work. Lot of mistakes are all over the book. I just tried the example (p. 246) about <subdialog name="..." uri="..." /> then found out that <subdialog /> does not have uri attribute (p. 340) (<submit> doesn't have neither). Some examples use </block> as an begin-tag, some use <block/> as an end-tag. The author use <-- comment --> for comments everywhere in the book. I found a long error-list from this book. I wish the author takes more time to double check before publishing this book. The time you (beginner) spend to make examples in this book to work is more expensive than the money and time you spend on other books or FAQs in the internet. Right now, the only part I use from this book is VoiceXML Reference:TAGS part which, actually, you can find it in any VoiceXML web sites.
Rating:
Summary: very poor book
Review: I am very disappointed after buying this book. Lot of examples don't work. Lot of mistakes are all over the book. I just tried the example (p. 246) about <subdialog name="..." uri="..." /> then found out that <subdialog /> does not have uri attribute (p. 340) (<submit> doesn't have neither). Some examples use </block> as an begin-tag, some use <block/> as an end-tag. The author use <-- comment --> for comments everywhere in the book. I found a long error-list from this book. I wish the author takes more time to double check before publishing this book. The time you (beginner) spend to make examples in this book to work is more expensive than the money and time you spend on other books or FAQs in the internet. Right now, the only part I use from this book is VoiceXML Reference:TAGS part which, actually, you can find it in any VoiceXML web sites.
Rating:
Summary: Nice Book
Review: I am working on web based Telecommunications product development. We have to introduce voiceXML features in our product. I bought this book couple of weeks back. This book covers all the basic concepts include conventional telephony input, output and call control features, including: touch-tone input, automatic speech recognition support, audio recording (e.g., for voice mail), the ability to play recordings (such as WAV files), speech synthesis from plain or annotated text, call transfer, conferencing, and other advanced call management features. I have easily learned XML-based definition with an HTML-like appearance. This book is more useful for experienced web content programmers. The author explained every topic with real example. The "Hello World" example in this book is great.
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