Vocalis Shares Surge as Test Begins With MCI WorldCom (Update1)
Bloomberg News
November 25, 1998, 9:48 a.m. ET
Vocalis Shares Surge as Test Begins With MCI WorldCom (Update1)
(Adds comment from MCI in 4th paragraph.)
London, Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Vocalis Group Plc's shares
surged after a report MCI WorldCom Inc., the No. 2 U.S. long-
distance company, may use Vocalis' speech-recognition products
to introduce a voice-based Internet service.
Shares rose as much as 8.5 pence, or 18.3 percent, to 55p.
MCI Worldcom plans to begin trials of Vocalis'
''SpeecHTML'' product to determine its usefulness in allowing
voice-based use of the World Wide Web. If implemented, users
will be able to use voice commands to access and input data from
Internet Web sites hosted by MCI WorldCom's UUNet and WorldCom
Advanced Networks Internet units.
''It's a trial for the technology,'' said Mark Weeks, a
spokesman for MCI WorldCom. ''We're investigating to see whether
it is worthwhile offering the technology on our service.''
Cambridge, England-based Vocalis said yesterday its first-
half loss narrowed by one-third to 1.05 million pounds ($1.74
million) as it cut costs and demand for new products rose.
--Kate Norton and Bundeep S. Rangar in the London newsroom (44 |
