http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...Yg&refer=india
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- International Business Machines Corp., operator of the world's largest company-owned laboratory, is developing software that lets people who are unable to read access the Internet through mobile phones.
Researchers at IBM's lab in New Delhi created a pilot program called Spoken Web that lets speakers of a Hindi dialect surf the Internet using their voice, Paul Bloom, who heads IBM's mobile research, said in a telephone interview.
IBM is counting on software such as the Spoken Web, as well as sales in emerging markets, to boost earnings and sales. The Armonk, New York-based company aims to generate half of its profit from software by 2010, up from 40 percent today. IBM estimates that 1 billion people will surf the Internet on phones by 2011.
``Roughly 2.6 billion cell phones are in use today and the world population is 6 billion, leaving at least another 3 billion people who still need cell phones,'' Bloom said. Many consumers in the developing world don't own personal computers and only have phones, he said.
IBM is also targeting the Spoken Web at customers such as small-business owners, who value the convenience of connecting to the Web while traveling, Bloom said. Plumbers could use the service to book appointments, while farmers could look up the price of crops and get weather reports.
India Test
IBM plans to complete the test project in India within three months and have the Spoken Web rolled out on a ``large scale'' in the country by the end of the year, said Steven Tomasco, an IBM spokesman.
``People want to do more with the devices they already have -- and just about everybody has a cell phone,'' Phillip Redman, a Boston-based analyst with researcher Gartner Inc., said in a telephone interview.
IBM has about 100 researchers scattered throughout its eight global labs developing software and services for mobile phones, Bloom said. One program instantaneously translates spoken English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese. IBM is planning to test the technology during the Olympics in Beijing.
Last year, IBM supplied the U.S. Army with 1,000 translation devices to help the military translate Arabic during peacekeeping missions, Bloom said.
Other projects include turning mobile phones into wallets, which is already popular in Japan and Korea. Shoppers hold their phone in front of a device at the checkout to make a payment. Another project turns handsets into health monitors, sending data on blood pressure directly to doctors' offices.
IBM fell 5 cents to $124.35 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have climbed 15 percent this year.
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