SandCherry has designed its software so that IT organizations can use a single SOA implementation for self-service applications for both Web and voice. Voice self-service includes Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the company says.

It points out that SOA, which it defines as "a standards-based design methodology that aligns IT architectures with business processes using a collection of shared services on a network," can be deployed with standard interfaces to mask the complexity of the underlying IT environment. This, in turn, enables a SOA strategy to allow greater re-use of IT assets enabling faster development of new business services, which are more reliable and easier to maintain once deployed, it says.

In Q4 2005 the company participated with BEA Systems to announce "a significant milestone in driving the convergence of IT and the telecom network," by joining in with more than 20 other companies in BEA's telco partner ecosystem.

"A major challenge facing telecom operators is monetization of their infrastructure investments of the last few years, particularly in the face of flat to declining revenues from traditional services," said Rob Rich, executive vice president of Telecom and Networking Research at Yankee Group. "While next generation service delivery architectures hold significant promise, the creation of application and technology vendor ecosystems by leading platform suppliers is critical to the emergence of new revenue generating services, and ultimately to improved financial performance by service providers."