Hi. This is the Pentagon.

 

Back on April 14 I told you a funny story about one of my competitors who had a little trouble with Google Voice. It was hilarious. Well, now they called back again, trying to sell us their inferior software from a faraway country, well, I mean far from the USA.

Once again Google Voice did its best to transcribe the message, and it is pretty funny.

Hi. This is the Pentagon. Simply Technologies this. This is to your inquiry for the store agreed to back up software. I was going to see if we can assist Toyota the buttons I want to discuss about the student teacher society as pricing on this note with them for us to connect to discuss about your department. I can reached at (xxx) xxx-xxxx extension xxx our replied to my email, down at the beenwith dot com. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Bye bye.

 

This time I wanted to see for myself just how good Google Voice is. So I called it myself and left a message you might recognize. Here’s how Google Voice transcribed my message.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on short I thought I would set sail about a little and see the water read part of the world.

 

As you probably know, that’s the first couple of lines from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Arcane usage and all, Google Voice did a pretty great job of transcribing it. Except for three small mistakes, it’s good enough to be perfectly understood.

OK. So I picked up the phone and left a message, and was nearly perfectly understood. My competitor picked up the phone and left a message, and he sounded like he said he was the Pentagon, wanting to discuss pricing for the Parent-Teacher society. Last time we tried this my competitor said, “Yeah I did it. Death cut… Then a Beaver.”

Which one of us would you rather do business with?

 

Rob Cosgrove is the President of Remote Backup Systems, founder of the Online Backup Industry, and a vocal advocate for maintaining the highest standards in Online Backup software. His latest book, the Online Backup Guide for Service Providers: How to Start and Operate an Online Backup Service, is available online now, on Amazon.com, and at bookstores.

Remote Backup Systems provides brandable, scalable software and solutions to MSPs and VARs enabling them to offer Online Backup Services.