16. An apparatus for providing a remote administrator access to a target application, the apparatus comprising an interactive voice response (“IVR”) system for receiving an access request from the remote administrator, wherein the IVR is configured to receive access request in speech form, authenticate the remote administrator prior to granting access to the target application to perform an administrative function defined by: re-programming the application, obtaining diagnostics, and conducting remote maintenance, and, once access is granted, communicate the target system configurations to the remote administrator in speech form; wherein the authenticating step further comprises using a secret phrase or a biometric characteristic with an authentication routine taken from the group consisting of: speaker recognition, speech recognition and natural language question/response.
16. An apparatus for providing a remote administrator access to a target application, the apparatus comprising an interactive voice response (“IVR”) system for receiving an access request from the remote administrator, wherein the IVR is configured to receive access request in speech form, authenticate the remote administrator prior to granting access to the target application to perform an administrative function defined by: re-programming the application, obtaining diagnostics, and conducting remote maintenance, and, once access is granted, communicate the target system configurations to the remote administrator in speech form; wherein the authenticating step further comprises using a secret phrase or a biometric characteristic with an authentication routine taken from the group consisting of: speaker recognition, speech recognition and natural language question/response. 23. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the IVR further comprises a speech synthesizer device to speak to the remote administrator.