'Virtual Admin' Talks While You Work

These hard times mean it's a good time to take a fresh look at so-called virtual assistants.

We're not talking living, breathing admins who handle administrative chores from afar via the Web and a cell phone. Rather, the automated systems that combine call routing, personalized messaging, conversational agents and now business telephony to make your work time more about work and less about making your office feel and sound like an actual place of business.

Digital virtual assistants have not been a happy layer of the gadget-o-sphere, particularly for the small enterprise. Yes, there has been much dabbling with the technology that seeks to soften the line between what is human and what is not in digital communications. Most major telephony vendors like Alcatel-Lucent(ALU Quote), Nortel Networks(NT Quote) and Juniper Networks(JNPR Quote) -- and to a certain extent, players like Nokia(NOK Quote), Motorola(MOT Quote) and even Cisco(CSCO Quote) -- have flooded the market with automated attendants, call-routing software and other riffs on synthetic/human interfaces. ...