MTI Complements Microsoft Speech Server 'MSS' Hosting Environment with Pronexus VBSALT, the First IVR Development Tool for the MSS Platform.

OTTAWA -- Pronexus Inc.

Hosted IVR tool & MSS platform offering minimizes capital investment, simplifies development & deployment of speech applications, and reduces time-to-market

Pronexus Inc. (www.pronexus.com), an IVR and speech solutions innovator who brought the power of .NET to the field, and Message Technologies Inc. (www.messagetech.com), today announced that they have reached a reseller and hosting agreement. Message Technologies, Inc. (MTI), an industry-leading provider of speech IVR hosting, services and solutions, will resell Pronexus' VBSALT(and offer hosting services for development, testing and production of VBSALT applications, all as part of the company's new Microsoft Speech Server initiative.

"The MTI - Pronexus initiative to offer Microsoft Speech Server and VBSALT hosting services will provide mid-market companies even greater accessibility to speech technology solutions, helping to make speech a pervasive technology for companies of all sizes," said Teresa Fagan, director of Marketing for Microsoft Speech Server. "Tools such as Pronexus' VBSALT help deliver the business benefits of speech technologies at the lowest total cost of ownership."

VBSALT, the first Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool for MSS 2004 R2, accelerates speech application development by combining a powerful graphical design interface for call flow and call control with proven best practices for voice user interface (VUI) development - critical ingredients for speech application success.

Through the offering, MTI will provide customers with both a hosted test bed and a hosted production environment for supporting the MSS 2004 R2 platform and VBSALT runtime for end-customer applications. In addition, training for the VBSALT development tool, will be available through MTI. Developing, testing, and deploying speech-enabled IVR applications using VBSALT and MTI's hosted environment offers several benefits, including:

- Minimized Capital Investments: With MTI's hosted Microsoft Speech Server and VBSALT offering, organizations can help lower the upfront capital investment in telecom lines, telephony cards, platform costs, telephony servers and software licenses and benefit from a pay-as-you-go model.

- Reduced Time-to-Market: Hosting eliminates the need to deal with infrastructure set-up, configuration and installation of telephony hardware and VBSALT software, since MSS 2004 R2 and the RAD tool have been pre-integrated by MTI.

- Reliability, Flexibility & Scalability: MTI's hosted MSS 2004 R2 environment provides developers with on-demand capacity expansion, in a fault tolerant, carrier-grade infrastructure. In addition, VBSALT's flexible architecture (which allows completely independent IVRs to run on one machine), enables developers to easily deploy, modify or shut down IVRs, with no impact to other applications and with minimum disruption to customer service levels.

- Reduced Project Risk: VBSALT and MTI's hosting environment enable the design, development, and testing of IVR speech applications in a real-world environment before committing to full-fledged deployment.

"Working with a great IVR hosting provider, such as MTI, enables us to realize our vision of making speech affordable and simple to use," stated Mike Byrnes, Director of Business Development at Pronexus Inc. "MTI's hosting environment, coupled with our VBSALT development tool, provide the technological and financial elements necessary for giving organizations, especially those in the SMB space, the opportunity to benefit from the power of speech technology."

"Pronexus' technology combined with our hosting services will make speech technology a viable option for many businesses who may not have considered it in the past," said Darrell Knight, President of Message Technologies, Inc. " The high initial capital investment required to develop speech IVR applications has been a deterrent to wide-spread adoption. Emerging technology such as the VBSALT tool, combined with the Microsoft platform is allowing us to aggressively price hosting and development options to widen the choices within the speech industry."

VBSALT will be fully available from MTI as of August 1st 2005.

About Pronexus Inc.

Founded in 1993, Pronexus Inc. is the developer of VBVoice(TM) and VBSALT(TM), the only Rapid Application Development toolkits for telephony and speech inside Visual Studio.NET that blend both GUI and sophisticated programming. Pronexus also provides VeoSuite, a range of turnkey applications for Microsoft Speech Server, and a complement of professional services that voice-enable a variety of industries. Comprehensive support and acclaimed training complete the firm's offerings.

About Message Technologies, Inc.

MTI (Message Technologies, Inc.) is an industry leader in providing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and speech technologies. Its mission is to deliver innovative and affordable interactive voice solutions with maximum customer satisfaction. With over 2000 customers throughout North America and Canada, MTI specializes in speech IVR outsourcing services, including VoiceXML and SALT hosting. MTI also provides senior telephony and speech professional services for the design, development, deployment and ongoing testing of speech-enabled applications. It handles every part of the speech application infrastructure including trunk and platform provisioning, business continuation planning, monitoring, web access, physical and logical security and co-location, and live agent services. For more information about MTI, please visit its website at www.messagetech.com.