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News Alert from Dow Jones Online News via Quote.com
Topic: (NYSE:IBM) Intl Business Machines Corp,
Quote.com News Item #7180695
Headline: IBM, Software Firm Applied Language Join To Offer Speech Products
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By Raju Narisetti, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
NEW YORK -- International Business Machines Corp. is planning a
partnership with Applied Language Technologies Inc., a closely held
speech-software company in Boston, as it continues to seek business uses
for voice-recognition technology.
Under the agreement, expected to be announced today, the companies
will work together to offer software tools and vocabulary "engines,"
based on Applied Language's SpeechWorks and IBM's ViaVoice technologies,
to companies that are interested in developing speech-driven
applications.
Terms of the agreement, one of several that IBM's speech unit has
signed this past year, weren't being disclosed.
Both companies hope to find customers interested in using voice
recognition for such things as buying movie tickets, reserving airline
tickets or conducting bank transactions without the help of touch-tone
phone menus or an operator. Commonwealth Associates, a New York
investment banking firm, estimates the market for such products -- both
speech engines and applications -- was about $408 million in 1997, with
speech-application products alone expected to reach $2.4 billion in year
2000.
Applied Language specializes in technologies that allow people to
talk to computers via the telephone, and faces competition from a slew
of rivals including Registry Magic Inc. and Nuance Communications Inc.
Applied Language has had some initial success with major clients,
including on-line trading firm E*Trade Group Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United
Airlines. Founded in 1994, Applied Language is backed by venture
capitalists and Intel Corp.
IBM, Armonk, N.Y., has been aggressively trying to find partners for
its ViaVoice technology, which faces tough competition from the other
two major speech-technology companies, closely held Dragon Systems Inc.
and Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, which is backed by Microsoft
Corp.
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