GENERIC RUN-TIME ENGINE FOR INTERFACING BETWEEN APPLICATIONS AND SPEECH ENGINES

A universal voice-data handling system for interfacing between a software application program and at least one speech-related application interface. The voice-data handling system includes a computer system; a run-time module, loaded into and running on the computer system, the run-time module adapted to a specialized task for running concurrently and interactively with the at least one speech-related application interface; and an initialization file, loaded into the computer system, containing parameters specific to the software application program the initialization file being generated by an application, based on the behavior required by the speech-related software application program for specifying a behavior of the run-time module in relation to the software application program the initialization file being generated by an application, based on the behavior required by the speech-related software application program.