Conversa Releases Conversation Server; Gateway Between Wireless Phone and Internet Already has Won Speech Industry Award.Business Editors, High-Tech high-tech also hi-tech adj. Informal Of, relating to, or resembling high technology. high-tech Adjective same as hi-tech Adj. 1. Writers REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2000 Conversa, a global leader in enabling speech technologies that facilitate Internet access See how to access the Internet. through both mobile and traditional access devices, announced today the launch of its Conversation Server(TM). A software package designed to provide a visual-free interface to networked content through a telephone connection, Conversation Server acts as the intermediate agent or "gateway" between the telephone network and the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the space, to enable conversational access to any network-based information. Conversation Server has direct application for companies that see voice recognition and wireless as key elements of their product strategies. It allows essentially turnkey See turnkey system. development and hosting of voice portals An interactive voice response (IVR) front end to a data retrieval system. This does not differ in core technology from traditional IVR; rather, the difference is in the application presented. Where old-style IVR was mostly a routing application (press 1 for sales, 2 for service, etc. . Using Conversation Server and included developer tools, content providers can create and maintain conversations that are available through wireless and standard phones. "Conversation Server is ideal for organizations like communications companies Communications Company is a communications unit of the United States Marine Corps. They are part of Combat Logistics Regiment 37 , 3rd Marine Logistics Group (3MLG) and III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF). The unit is based out of the Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. , as it very tightly integrates with the future of wireless," said Dave Anastasi, CEO/President at Conversa. "Server is designed for companies who want to quickly and easily voice-enable their content, for example, to create a voice portal. Conversation Server lets them do that with the best speech recognition and text-to-speech engine around, in a package that is not only easy to deploy but also has a very low total cost of ownership." The initial version of Conversation Server has been integrated by AirTrac, the Chicago-based provider of multi-modal portals for wireless carriers, into its new "EveryWhere Office" remote access business solution. EveryWhere Office won the "Best Telephony Meaning "sound over distance," it refers to electronically transmitting the human voice. In the beginning, telephony dealt only with analog signals in the circuit-switched networks of the telephone companies. Product/Service" award at the AVIOS AVIOS American Voice Input/Output Society Conference in May, a leading speech recognition industry conference. AirTrac has since placed orders with Conversa for Conversation Servers that potentially will support over a million wireless subscribers. In addition, the two companies have a strategic partnership to develop additional voice portal solutions for communications carriers. Compared with other voice-enabled servers on the market, Conversation Server has a number of advantages, including: -- Superior recognition accuracy -- Includes real-time text-to-speech engine -- Simpler application development, with GUI application tools and custom application objects provided -- Caller ID, telephony call control and e-mail support Because Conversation Server includes sophisticated developer tools (Conversa Architect(TM)), creating conversational voice interfaces does not require C++ coding so the development cycle is very short. And because it can be deployed "out of the box," using off-the-shelf hardware and software components, cost of ownership is very low. Availability Conversation Server is available now. Contact sales@conversa.com, or call sales at 425/895-1800. About AirTrac AirTrac provides multi-functional voice-controlled portals for wireless carriers to enable their subscribers access to open voice mail, e-mail and fax messages as well as reference many totally voice-interactive services, i.e., stock prices and volume, weather, restaurants, personal data base, directions, entertainment, etc. In addition, the AirTrac "Office EveryWhere" service may be configured con·fig·ure tr.v. con·fig·ured, con·fig·ur·ing, con·fig·ures To design, arrange, set up, or shape with a view to specific applications or uses: to access corporate data to check inventory, place orders, access help desks, etc. AirTrac, Inc., is headquartered in Chicago and may be accessed at www.airtrac.com or 312/341-0800. About Conversa Founded in 1994, Conversa (pronounced con-ver-say) provides solutions that enable voice interaction with networked information, including the Internet, when other interfaces are difficult or impossible. Built on an innovative speech engine, Conversa(R) technology is speaker-independent, modular, scalable and accommodates unlimited vocabulary, making it ideally suited for embedded applications An application that permanently resides in an industrial or consumer device. Providing some type of control function and/or user interface, the software is typically stored in a non-volatile memory such as ROM or flash memory. . It also drives award-winning products including a voice browser A voice browser is a web browser that presents an interactive voice user interface to the user. In addition, it typically provides an interface to the PSTN or a PBX. Just as a visual web browser works with HTML pages, a voice browser operates on pages that specify voice dialogues. , desktop and web developer tools, and a conversational server. Conversa headquarters are in Redmond, Wash., and is located on the web at www.conversa.com. Conversa is a registered trademark and Conversation Server a trademark of Conversational Computing computing - computer Corp. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Editors Note: -- Interviews with technology and/or business officers of Conversa may be arranged by contacting Steve Birge at 425/636-0709, and of AirTrac by contacting Stephanie Hamernik at 312/541-8787. |
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