SUN, BEVOCAL AND NUANCE FORM STRATEGIC ALLIANCE
TO DELIVER "SUN VOICETONE PLATFORM"
TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS CARRIERS

2002/03/13

編者按：
SUN、BEVOCAL和NUANCE結(jié)成戰(zhàn)略同盟將SUN的VOICETONE平臺轉(zhuǎn)向電信級應(yīng)用......

Pre-Integrated Solution Combines Hardware, Software and Services to Speed Delivery of Standards-based Speech Applications

預(yù)先集成的解決方案包括硬件、軟件及服務(wù)，以便能盡快提供基于標準的語音應(yīng)用。

SANTA CLARA, SUNNYVALE and MENLO PARK, CA -- March 13, 2002 -- Sun Microsystems, BeVocal and Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN) today announced the availability of the Sun VoiceTone Platform, an open, standards compliant architecture to help both mobile and wireline operators quickly deliver enhanced services -- including voice portals, voice-navigated voicemail and voice-activated dialing -- to their subscribers. The strategic alliance between Sun and market leaders BeVocal and Nuance will provide telecommunications carriers with validated, integrated solutions for the development and deployment of voice-driven services.

"By utilizing this solution from Sun, BeVocal and Nuance, BellSouth provides its voice hosting customers with a scalable and reliable platform," said Jai Menon, BellSouth's executive vice president of applications, strategy and product innovation. "At the same time, the VoiceTone Platform's open, standards-compliant architecture future-proofs our investment, enabling BellSouth to easily add and integrate new voice-activated services to meet the needs of our consumer and business customers."

"This collaboration joins a powerhouse in telecom, Sun, with two speech innovators, BeVocal and Nuance, who have a laser focus on carriers," said Mark Plakias, The Kelsey Group's Senior Vice President of Voice & Wireless. "BeVocal's VoiceXML applications allow carriers to reuse speech assets for a better profit on revenue-enhancing voice offers, deployed on a platform they know and trust. We see VoiceTone as the right answer to the carrier industry's need for reliable, open solutions."

The Sun VoiceTone Platform - Simplifying Speech Services

Sun, along with BeVocal and Nuance, provides mobile operators a solution that simplifies the process of building and maintaining a best-in-class speech service.

The Sun VoiceTone Platform offers:

• proven set of VoiceXML based applications combining the products, technology, and know-how of BeVocal and Nuance with Sun's years of telecom expertise, deployed and tested to validate quality of service and to ensure carriers' time-to-market needs:
  
  • Reliability of Sun's UltraSPARC processor-based systems, including the carrier-grade NEBS-certified Netra[TM] T1 AC200 server, the Netra t 1405 server, and the entry-level Sun Fire[TM] V880 server. The VoiceTone platform supports iPlanet[TM] Web Proxy Server, and is expected to interoperate with iPlanet Application Server version 6.5 by late 2002.
  • Scalability made possible with BeVocal's Foundation software platform, VoiceXML interpreter and suite of voice application bundles with multimodal output. Accuracy and performance in both wireless and wireline applications supported by Nuance's industry-leading speech recognition, voice authentication and text to speech software.

   

• Ease of integration into a carrier's existing network infrastructure, whether PSTN or IP, by using distributed, fault-tolerant components for critical functions including load-balanced speech processing, voice application rendering, telephony and call control, operation and administration, and billing and provisioning.
• A standards-compliant platform architecture, enabling carriers to easily build branded voice-driven services, while supporting in-house or 3rd-party developer applications based on VoiceXML 2.0 and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), as well as other emerging IETF and W3C specifications including Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML), Speech Recognition Grammar (SRG), Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and future Java[TM] APIs.

"This solution brings us closer to realizing a voicetone vision of enabling subscribers to accomplish their day-to-day tasks, get information over the web and access personalized content, all via speech, the most natural form of communication," said Shahram Moradpour, senior director of Market Development at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Through this strategic alliance with BeVocal and Nuance, we are providing mobile and wireline operators a speech platform solution that is ready-to-deploy today and that scales with their growing subscriber interest."

"BeVocal's vision is to bring voicetone to every phone, enabling callers to use their voice rather than a keypad to instantly connect to people, businesses and information. We are excited to team with these technology leaders to offer carrier customers the most reliable, flexible and scalable voicetone platform on the market," said David Hood, CEO of BeVocal. "Our combined solution enables carriers to deliver highly personalized and distinctively branded voice services that generate more money from their network by boosting revenue, increasing customer loyalty and reducing expenses."

"This integrated approach will dramatically speed time to market for the worlds' telecommunications carriers," said Ron Croen, president and CEO of Nuance. "By combining VoiceXML and technology from Nuance and BeVocal with Sun's robust and flexible platform, we can help ensure that carriers will be able to scale their applications to meet customer demand well into the future."

The total worldwide market for speech recognition-based services, including voice portals, voice-activated messaging, and automated directory assistance is expected to reach over $41 billion by 2005, according to the Kelsey Group, a leading voice and mobile commerce consulting firm. The total worldwide market for the voice technologies used to deliver these services is expected to reach nearly $16.3 billion by 2005.

The Sun VoiceTone Platform is available and ready to ship today. For more information or to order an evaluation system, contact VTPsales@sun.com or sales@bevocal.com.

This speech-enabling solution is expected to be deployed in Sun's iForce[sm] Ready Center in Menlo Park, California, to help carriers build customer proof of concept demonstrations to validate cost and time to market needs. The iForce Centers bring together the community of Sun, its customers and partners to create and deliver customer-driven solutions. Built around a dynamic relationship model and providing access to iForce Centers worldwide, the iForce Initiative helps customers engage with Sun and its industry partners to reduce risk when deploying solutions.

About BeVocal, Inc.

BeVocal creates voice software that helps telecom companies generate more money from their networks. Customers including BellSouth and Cingular use BeVocal's platforms and applications to deliver services such as voice dialing, voicemail, email reading and voice portals to their customers every day. Developers worldwide build high-quality voice applications using the BeVocal Cafe (http://cafe.bevocal.com), ranked as the industry's #1 VoiceXML development environment by CT Labs. BeVocal is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For additional information call 408-907-3200 or visit http://www.bevocal.com.

About Nuance

Nuance's speech recognition, voice authentication and text-to-speech software is changing the way companies interact with customers over the phone. In markets around the world, leading carriers and corporations - including British Airways, Nomura Securities, OnStar, Sprint PCS, United Parcel Service, Vodafone, and many more - use Nuance's software to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction and retention, create new sources of revenue and improve security. Nuance's software powers a range of innovative applications including automated directory assistance, voice-activated dialing, self-service banking and voice-driven customer relationship management. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif. and has offices around the world. For more information, visit www.nuance.com or call 1-888-NUANCE-8.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- The Network Is The Computer[tm] -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, for example, those relating to the potential adoption and uses of the VoiceTone platform; the scalability, time and cost-savings and other benefits derived from a customer's use of the VoiceTone platform; the integration and interoperability of Sun, Nuance and BeVocal technologies and/or the technologies of third parties and the growth of the speech recognition-based services market. There is no assurance that the results contemplated by any forward-looking statements will be realized. The following factors, risks and uncertainties, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described or implied in this press release's forward-looking statements: the risk that customers will not adopt the VoiceTone platform for any or all of the anticipated uses thereof; the risk that Sun, BeVocal and Nuance are unable to successfully integrate their respective technologies or third party technologies to create the VoiceTone platform; the risk that customers will be unable to develop or commercialize successfully products or services that use the VoiceTone platform or that such products or services are not commercially accepted by consumers; the risk that the market for speech recognition-based services will not materialize as suggested; and other factors described in Nuance's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Nuance's last-filed prospectus, annual and quarterly reports. Nuance does not undertake to update any oral or written forward-looking statements that may be made by or on behalf of Nuance.

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