to navigate. Toll-free directory services ask callers to speak the name of the company for which they require a toll-free num- ber without operator assistance. Local telephone companies use speech recognition SO that customers can easily obtain billing information without speaking with a billing representative. How Speech Recognition Works Speech recognition works by first detecting and then capturing parts of spoken words (utterances). After removing background noise, it converts the captured utterances to a digital representation. Capturing the speech and digitally representing it is done by Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) on high-speed specialized computer chips. The speech recognition software then breaks the sounds into small chunks and compares various properties of the chunks of sound to large amounts of previously captured data contained in a database. High-speed computer processors perform the digitization and comparisons in mil- liseconds. They also take into account gender differences and regional accents. Sys- tems contain different databases of expected responses based on the application. A corporate directory has a different speech database than one for airline scheduling lost-luggage applications. Data Centers and IP Private Branch Exchanges SUMMARY Virtualization and VoIP systems have helped increase efficiency in data centers and in IT functions. Virtualization offers data centers the ability to reduce capital spent on servers and to use less space. Because they operate over the same cabling as data appli- cations, IP telephone systems eliminate the requirement for two sets of cabling, one for voice and one for data. Both of these innovations require that IT staff members learn new ways to manage servers with multiple applications and operating systems, as well as VoIP technology, which is markedly different from older-style telephone systems. Applications that an enterprise feels can be moved to hosting centers and cloud providers are likely to be those that are commoditized or not critical for