  Back in March the W3C released the urlLink latest VoiceXML standard.  When designing urlLink IVR platforms I struggle with whether or not to try to embrace VoiceXML.  Outside the fact that VoiceXML is a published standard,  one of VoiceXML's strengths it that it has a lot of industry " steam"  behind it.
 But that is also one it's weaknesses.  If you've sat in a meeting with a bunch of bickering techno- weenies arguing over best- practices you'll see where I'm coming from.  I've often found that such standards aren't tempered by what's needed in the 'real world' as much as they could be.  Witness the butchery that occured with HTML by marketeer-
driven web site designers looking to layout a pixel- perfect product page when HTML had no facility for such nonsense.  Then came applets,  DHTML,  CSS,  plugins,
 and whole host of other nonsense such that HTML as it was originally published was little more than a starting point for what will soon be XAML ( you wait and see)  It seems to me that VoiceXML lacks the fidelty I've built into IVR tools in the past and things I may tackle in the future:  1)  integration with a programming environment ( like .
Net)  2)  a consistent and reliable approach for handling outbound calls 3)  support of commodity telephony products ( like Asterisk)  4)
 the " I don't have to pay a lot of money to some big company like IBM or Microsoft feature"  In a sense,  I guess I feel like early web developers,  somewhat constrained by a committee- designed standard.
 If VoiceXML is on your brain,  you might be interested in urlLink this article on determining if it's is right for your application.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to negate the benefits of embracing a standard.  A devil's advocate might ask me if I'd embrace VoiceXML if it met all my needs.  And my likely response would be:
 " Probably not,  just because I like the freedom to think outside the box when I want to.  My excuse has always been:  " If the fidelity of my IVR approach exceeds that of VoiceXML,
 and I persist to XML anyway,  can't a simple transform be used on my file to create fodder for the VoiceXML engine?  Keep thinking,  Bruce 
