sure wish they were involved LHSPF news ......
Tuesday March 2, 8:31 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Lernout & Hauspie Strengthens
Position in Telephony Market,
Demonstrates Products at CTE
L&H's Speech and Language Technology Deployed in Numerous New
Telephony Products Launched at CTE
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 1999-- Lernout & Hauspie
(NASDAQ:LHSPF; EASDAQ:LHSP) (L&H(TM)), a worldwide market leader in speech and
linguistic technologies, products and services is fueling the growth of voice telephony solutions as
demonstrated by numerous customer product launches at the Computer Telephony Expo (CTE) in
Los Angeles. Ericsson, Telekol, AVT Corporation, Arial Systems, Baypoint Innovations and PIKA
joined the growing ranks of telephony developers that deploy L&H text to speech technology (TTS)
and automatic speech recognition (ASR) in telephony applications. At booth 2409 on the CTE show
floor L&H will demonstrate: L&H RealSpeak(TM), a breakthrough synthesized speech technology;
Popeye, a unified messaging service; L&H's large vocabulary speech recognition engine (LVSR) for
telephony and CT Media Antares Toolkit.
''L&H has continued to expand its speech and language technology leadership position, in part, by
delivering solutions specific to the telephony market,'' said Gaston Bastiaens, president and CEO of
L&H. ''The numerous telephony customers deploying L&H technology -- over 100 world-wide --
demonstrates the company's strength as a leading speech vendor in the telephony market.
Additionally, the growth in the number of telephony applications emphasizes that consumers are
demanding better, easier to use interfaces and developers are looking to speech technology to meet
this demand.''
Customer Demonstrations
Both Ericsson and Telekol Corporation will demonstrate voice-enabled applications using L&H's
speech technology.
Ericsson will demonstrate the Ericsson CG 1000, a PC Cordless Phone System designed for
speech-enabled call management in small businesses. L&H's ASR and TTS engines allow CG 1000
users to access their contact database via telephone, to receive notification anywhere in the world of
voice mail, e-mail and fax receipts and to have e-mail and faxes read to them in their originating
language. L&H's ASR and TTS technologies also support the CG 1000's voice activated or DTMF
personal assistant, allowing calls placed to the small business to be 'answered' by the CG 1000, and
prompting the caller to simply speak the name of the person they wish to speak to.
Telekol Corporation is demonstrating unified messaging and desktop call control on their IntegraX
multimedia, multi-application communications server. IntegraX allows users to access and manage
messages and calls using the regular telephone network or the Internet. IntegraX uses L&H's
text-to-speech engine to read users their e-mails over the telephone.
Customer Product Launches
The company announced the following customers have launched products in applications ranging
from universal messaging to automated attendant to paging systems using L&H's speech technology
at CTE:
Baypoint Innovations, the advanced messaging division of Mitel Corporation launched its One Point
Messenger, a True Unified Messaging(SM) server based on Microsoft Exchange® and Windows®
NT. One Point Messenger provides enterprise users with access to their e-mail, voice mail and fax
messages via any telephone or any Internet Web browser. The server uses L&H TTS to read user's
e-mails and faxes over the telephone and to direct the system to forward e-mails or faxes to fax
machines. Baypoint, the advanced messaging division of Mitel Corporation (NYSE:MLT - news;
TSE:MLT - news), is a leading provider of enterprise voice mail systems.
''We chose L&H as our speech technology vendor because of the quality of the product and the
flexibility of the solution,'' said Ben Tang, vice president of marketing at Baypoint. ''The fact that
L&H supports both host and board based solutions enabled us to choose the appropriate solution
for Baypoint.''
PIKA Technologies Inc worked with L&H to port and integrate L&H's TTS technology in multiple
languages into PIKA's MonteCarlo device driver platform. PIKA Technologies Inc. is a leading
developer of high quality, computer telephony integration platforms. PIKA boards are prominently
used worldwide throughout the voice and fax processing industry. PIKA's portfolio of products offer
all types of telephony interfaces, ranging from loop, station, DID, E&M, T1 and E1. Applications for
PIKA products include voice processing, caller ID, pulse to DTMF, predictive dialing, fax
processing, speech recognition, text to speech conversion, conferencing, call centers and PC-based
PBXs.
AVT Corporation deployed L&H's TTS in CallXpress, a product that offers a unified messaging
service through integration with Microsoft Exchange(TM) and Lotus Notes(TM). The product uses
L&H's TTS to read users their email messages and voice messages via a single call from any
touch-tone phone in the world. L&H's TTS engine will also allow CallXpress to interpret 'email
shorthand' in easy-to-understand spoken languages. AVT Corporation is headquartered in Kirkland,
WA and develops and markets a broad line of open systems based advanced computer telephony
products.
Arial Systems will employ L&H's TTS in its voice-activated navigation module for ArialView(TM), a
turnkey intranet solution that intelligently determines the whereabouts of, and connects callers with,
associates and assets throughout an enterprise. The new ArialVoice Browser(TM) employs L&H's
TTS to enable callers to speak naturally into the telephone in order to request any individual in an
organization by name, determine the status and availability of the employee, and connect either to
that party or to a designated backup. ArialSystems, based in Vernon Hills, IL develops and markets
a suite of software solutions that help companies improve their collaborative communication
processes to enhance customer retention.
Product Demonstrations
While at CTE, L&H will demonstrate a variety of products and technologies geared to the telephony
market. Included in its demonstrations are: the L&H RealSpeak TTS engine, the Popeye universal
messaging system, its Large Vocabulary Recognition Engine, and its CT Media for Antares toolkit.
L&H customers Ericsson and Telekol will also be in the L&H booth to demonstrate telephony
market products incorporating L&H technology.
L&H RealSpeak TTS
The L&H RealSpeak TTS engine reads aloud names and digits with a human sounding voice,
providing voice quality and intelligibility that is expected to set a new industry standard in TTS. The
company expects that the engine's concatenative approach to speech synthesis and its
patent-pending synthesis algorithm will help overcome users' common objections to the ''robotic''
sounding synthesized voices produced by most TTS engines.
L&H's CT Media for Antares toolkit is an open software platform for designing standards-based
telecommunication applications that support messaging, interactive voice response, fax and automatic
call distribution. L&H is currently the only company that supports CT Media for Antares with TTS
and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies on one digital signal processor (DSP) board.
Popeye, L&H's telephony server solution, employs a speech user interface (SUI) developed using
L&H's ASR, TTS, Speech Compression, and Natural Language Dialogue Processing technologies.
Popeye's SUI lets users employ the telephone to access and send e-mail, have messages or
Internet-based information read back to them, issue commands, draft replies and more from any
phone anywhere. Popeye also features L&H's patented e-mail TTS pre-processor that interprets the
informal style of e-mail messages using context-sensitive rules. L&H offers this solution to Internet
Service Providers (ISPs), Cellular Service Providers, Telecommunications companies and
developers of Universal Messaging (UM) systems.
The L&H Large Vocabulary Recognizer is a speaker independent, continuous speech recognition
engine that supports active vocabularies scalable to more than 10,000 words. Specifically designed
for telephony application requirements, the L&H Large Vocabulary Recognizer integrates all features
and capabilities in one software product, making installation, deployment, and management easier
and more efficient. An open system design, a full function Application Programming Interface (API),
and a client/server architecture, combined with phoneme based recognition, make the L&H Large
Vocabulary Recognizer one of the market's most advanced, flexible and accurate Large Vocabulary
Recognition products available.
About Lernout & Hauspie
Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is a global leader in advanced speech and language solutions for vertical
markets, computers, automobiles, telecommunications, embedded products, consumer goods and
the Internet. The company is making the speech user interface (SUI) the keystone of simple,
convenient interaction between humans and technology, and is using advanced translation technology
to break down language barriers. L&H's products and services originate in four basic areas:
automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), digital speech and music compression
(SMC) and text-to-text (translation). For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the
World Wide Web at www.lhs.com.
This Press Release contains forward-looking information, including statements regarding L&H's
expectations and intentions concerning the development and commercialization activities of L&H,
certain of its customers and the performance of their respective products and products under
development. There can be no assurance that actual results will not be materially different than those
anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause actual results to
materially differ from those anticipated include known and unknown risks, including without
limitation, the uncertainty of new product development, including the risk that newly introduced
products may contain undetected errors or defects or otherwise not perform as anticipated, the early
stage of development of the speech and language technology markets, uncertainty of market growth,
rapid technological change and intense competition, as well as other risks set forth in L&H's filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. L&H cautions readers not to place undue reliance
upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. L&H expressly
disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such
statements to reflect any change in the L&H's expectations or any change in events, conditions or
circumstance on which any such statement is based.
All product names and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of L&H or their respective
owners.
Contact:
Lernout & Hauspie
Audrey Pobre, (781) 203-5341
apobre@lhs.com
or
Michelle Doherty, (781) 203-5324
mdoherty@lhs.com
More Quotes
and News:
LHSP - news
Lernout En Hauspie Speech Products (Nasdaq:LHSPF - news)
Mitel Corp (Toronto:MLT.TO - news; NYSE:MLT - news)
Related News Categories: computers, internet, telecom
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