Aggressive Pricing of SALT Hosting Creates Opportunities; Message Technologies, Inc. Adds Microsoft Speech Server to Hosting Options.

ATLANTA -- Message Technologies, Inc. (MTI), a leading provider of speech IVR hosting, services and solutions, unveiled today significantly reduced hosting rates based on MTI's addition of Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) and its Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification. A member of the Microsoft Speech Server Program, MTI is committed to making it easier and more cost-effective for entrepreneurs of all sizes to develop speech technologies.

New Pricing Enables Smaller Developers To Grow Quickly

Microsoft's business model for MSS allows MTI to offer flexible hosting options that help small and midsize speech application developers grow their businesses. MTI provides a per-minute hosting rate of 5 cents per minute for low-volume requirements as well as volume discounts as capacity requirements increase.

"Our customers are looking to minimize their risk as they begin moving their CRM applications to speech," said MTI President Darrell Knight. "Consequently we are finding that our highly competitive prices are driving more customers towards MSS as their platform of choice."

The SALT application hosting environment makes outsourcing particularly attractive to organizations burdened with the complexities and costs of maintaining a telephony infrastructure. By removing the risks and resource requirements of a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) solution, MTI's SALT application hosting provides a quick, low-cost way to reliably launch and grow voice applications.

.NET Community Gains Easy Entry To Voice Applications Market

The addition of Microsoft Speech Server to MTI's hosting solutions also introduces new opportunities for .NET developers. Without a new programming language to adopt, .NET developers can cost-effectively create and update voice and telephony applications within Microsoft Visual Studio. In effect, the SALT environment removes learning curves and price barriers to successful entry in the voice applications market.

"Because Microsoft Speech Server is based on .NET, speech has been opened up to an entire new universe of developers who are already familiar with that coding environment," according to Teresa Fagan, director of Marketing for Microsoft Speech Server, Microsoft. "By taking advantage of MTI's hosting offering, developers are able cost-effectively build and test speech-enabled web-based applications."

About MTI

Message Technologies, Inc. (MTI) improves business performance with leading voice applications hosting, design, development and services supporting every part of the IVR and speech applications spectrum. Visit www.messagetech.com.