Microsoft Agent

Microsoft Agent version 2.0 provides unprecedented technology to create innovative, new conversational interfaces for applications and Web pages. It provides powerful animation capability, interactivity, and versatility, with incredible ease of development.

Microsoft Agent is a technology that provides a foundation for more natural ways for people to communicate with their computers. It is a set of software services that enable developers to incorporate interactive animated characters into their applications and Web pages. These characters can speak, via a text-to-speech engine or recorded audio, and even accept spoken voice commands. Microsoft Agent empowers developers to extend the user interface beyond the conventional mouse and keyboard interactions prevalent today.

Enhancing applications and Web pages with a visible interactive personality will both broaden and humanize the interaction between users and their computers. There are a limitless number of roles and functions that developers can create for these personalities to perform.

• A welcome host could greet new users and provide a guided tour the first time a computer is turned on, an application is run, or a Web site is browsed.
• A friendly tutor could lead someone through a task or a decision tree with instructions step-by-step along the way.
• A messenger could deliver a notification or alert that a new e-mail has arrived and then offer to read it to you.
• An assistant could perform tasks for you like looking up information on the Internet and then reading it out loud.

Develop with what you already know

Microsoft Agent is not only versatile in terms of its potential uses, it is also versatile in how it can be implemented. Developers can choose from a wide range of language tools that support ActiveX technologies like the Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C++ development systems, and many others. Web authors can quickly incorporate Microsoft Agent onto their pages with HTML scripting languages like Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and JScript development software. Solution builders can integrate Microsoft Agent with Microsoft Office and other applications that support Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

Whichever language or development environment you prefer, programming the Microsoft Agent characters is quick and easy. And Microsoft Agent won't burden your budget either. It is available for download free from the Internet (connect charges may apply) and you can build as many applications as you want with it, all royalty-free.

The richer, interactive experience that Microsoft Agent enables is just one of the ways that Microsoft is working to simplify and improve computing for everyone. Join the growing number of developers and Web site builders already using Microsoft Agent today.

To use/run Microsoft
Agent, you need:

• Microsoft Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows NT® 4.0 (x86) or later
• Internet Explorer version 3.02 or later
• Personal computer with a Pentium 100 MHz or higher processor
• At least 16 MB of memory
• Hard-disk space for core components: 1 MB

Recommended:

• Hard-disk space for optional components:

  - Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice® Text-to-Speech engine for speech output: 1.6 MB

  - Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine for speech input: 22 MB

  - Characters installed locally:
  2-4 MB per character

• Windows compatible sound card
• Compatible speakers and microphone
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Key Features of Microsoft Agent

Quickly program interactive characters for your application or Web site with the Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit (ISBN 0-7356-0567-X). This book-and-CD package from Microsoft Press provides complete documentation and tools, as well as sample code.
	Look for the new Microsoft Agent Technology Logo which identifies applications and Web sites that utilize Microsoft Agent. Developers can find out more about the Logo Program, usage, and license requirements from the Microsoft Agent Web site (see below).

For more information:

Microsoft Agent, documentation, tools and examples are available for download on the World Wide Web in the Microsoft Agent Forum at http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/.

You can connect and communicate with other Microsoft Agent developers at the Microsoft Agent Internet newsgroup: news:microsoft.public.msagent.

To order other Microsoft Internet platform and developer tools products, or to receive a reseller referral, in the United States or Canada, call (800) 621-7930. Outside the United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary.