Conversant, as a project and as a product, was created in Columbus, OH, but its footprint and its impact would grow. This page lists some of the key headings for that impact and provides links to documents and memorabilia related to each.
Locations
The two primary Bell Labs and Western Electric locations involved with Conversant were Columbus and Denver. Even in the earliest days, some of the CONVERSANT circuit packs were fabricated in Denver and the final systems assembled in Columbus. By the early 1990s, AT&T’s messaging (Audix) and IVR (Conversant) products were brought together organizationally. That cross fertilized the Conversant and Audix products with R&D being done for both products in these two locations. When Conversant partnered with the 5ESS Operator Services Position System (OSPS) development, the Naperville, IL, Bell Labs also became an R&D location involved with the use of Conversant.
Application Development
Conversant was an “application execution” platform. Unlike a telephone or PBX switch, simply installing a Conversant and doing basic configuration accomplished nothing. One or more application scripts were required to accomplish the customer’s intended purpose. Bell Labs would do some of the initial applications and some innovative applications, but more would be required.
Innovation
It should be clear that there was significant innovation that made the Conversant and related speech products important. Bell Labs encouraged its staff to apply for patents. Although the Columbus organization was primarily a development organization (research organizations were “patent or perish” environments; development organizations less so), there were a number of key patents issued to the Columbus team that bear directly on the success of that product.
Please note, the total patents earned by the individuals that worked on Conversant and Audix at Columbus and Denver probably runs to the many hundreds and possibly more than a thousand. A few of these individuals are each inventors of more than one hundred patents.
Patent Citations
The patents highlighted here are a select few that were most directly connected to Conversant, its technology and application.
In The News
The Conversant and Audix products were frequently in various news publications. Most were internal publications like the Bell Labs News, but many were external such as The Columbus Dispatch and the New York Times. The following page is a listing that gives access to many of these. Many also include pictures of the individuals who were responsible for this work.
Technical and Journal Articles
In addition to news articles, a number of articles appeared in refereed journals and proceedings.
Conversant Brochures & Product Documentation
Every release of the Conversant product, an approximately annual event, was accompanied by numerous documents — technical documentation for installation, configuration, usage, and programming — as well as sales and marketing documentation. A sample of these are found here.
Personal Memorabilia
Various members of the Conversant “community” shared some of their treasured memorabilia from the project.
Impactful Projects
As stated elsewhere, the largest platform and application sales in the early history of Conversant were to AT&T subsidiaries and into the core AT&T telecom business. Over time, the importance of commercial sales to enterprises mid-sized to very large would become the most important revenue producer. Bell Labs would be responsible for nearly all of the early Conversant projects (1985-1989 timeframe), but commercial projects would come to dominate Conversant sales. This both spurred and was facilitated by the transition from a venture originally lodged in the Network Systems business unit that created products for the telephone companies & AT&T itself into the Global Business Communications Systems business unit that created products, particularly call center products, for commercial enterprises, government, and educational institutions.