大象传媒

Spinvox: Why it matters

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 18 Aug 09, 13:07 GMT

I've spent the last two weeks without the web, occupying myself with little more than beaches, books and barbecues on a Balearic island. But - and sadly, in my family's view - I did take an e-mail device and was surprised to see how many technology stories were breaking in the dog days of August.

Among those which caught my eye were - which, just as Microsoft is getting its search act together, is apparently going to bash Bing. Then there's and a new improved way of searching for what your friends are doing - which some seem convinced will allow Facebook to bash Google. And there was to put Office on Symbian phones - which could allow both to batter Apple in the smartphone market.

But I was most gripped by the continuing saga of Spinvox, which began nearly four weeks ago with rather than on speech-recognition technology. While I've been away, there have been a couple of developments.

First, the company invited a number of journalists and bloggers to its Marlow headquarters for a demonstration of its technology. From what I've read (for example, and ), the demonstration only succeeded in proving one thing - that the majority of voicemails received were indeed converted to text by humans rather than by machines.

Then Spinvox announced that it had received another 拢15m in funding - though it's not clear which of its investors have stumped up more cash. And finally, it emerged that a letter had been sent to the company's shareholders making some serious accusations about its management. I've now seen a copy of that letter, which stretches to six pages and goes through the company's finances in some detail. The letter appears to have been written some months ago - it's not clear how long it has been in the company's hands.

Spinvox has commenced an investigation into the allegations, carried out by a law firm and by its auditors Deloitte. But the company's board has also employed the top City PR firm Brunswick and got its lawyers Pinsent Masons to send a stiff letter to various bloggers warning them of dire consequences if they were to consider publishing the document. I understand that at least one former employee has received a letter accusing her of a breach of confidentiality, and threatening her with legal action.

But why, you may ask, does any of this matter? After all, it's a private company, and if its investors are happy to see their money used up very rapidly, that's their business. Well, there are two reasons we should care about the Spinvox affair - and both are connected to the reputation of Britain's technology sector.

First, this could make it harder for many of those eager young technology entrepreneurs I meet in places like London and Cambridge to get their ideas funded - the kind of people who scrimp and save, and sometimes bet their house or their overdraft on the hope that a venture capitalist or business angel will eventually back them. Let's hope then that Spinvox does eventually give the likes of Goldman Sachs, GLG and Toscafund Asset Management a return on the large sums they've invested. If not, they aren't likely to give much of a hearing to the next technology hopeful who comes along with an idea that will change the world.

But more serious, in my view, are the allegations relating to the way that Spinvox appears to have handled many of the call centre staff in places like Egypt, Pakistan and South Africa, who have done much of the work to make the business grow. When our first story about the company appeared, a number of people purporting to be present or former Spinvox employees at call-centres popped up on blogs to describe the call-centre operation. They all made similar allegations - that Spinvox had set impossible targets for its various call-centres, then abandoned them, leaving disputes about unpaid bills in their wake.

Now, anonymous internet users may not paint a fair picture, and we have no way of knowing whether these allegations are true. However, the same story has been repeated time and again and accords with evidence gathered by the 大象传媒.

I forwarded one typical post making these accusations to Spinvox's PR team at Brunswick, and asked them whether it presented a true and fair picture of the way the company operated.

When they came back, it was with this statement:

"SpinVox has an established and confidential procedure for handling any commercial dispute process, and therefore does not comment on allegations made in public forums. We are committed to treating all our suppliers fairly and ensuring the highest quality of service for our customers."

The reputation of a company that, just a few weeks back, was seen as a standard-bearer for UK start-ups has taken quite a battering over recent weeks, for which it blames a smear campaign by former employees.

But reaffirming its original status will require Spinvox to show that it is a firm which relies more on cutting-edge British technology than on transcribers around the world.