VoiceXML Forum Strongly Endorses W3C's Release of VoiceXML 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation; Announces 3rd Annual Users' Group Meeting at AVIOS 2003.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

AVIOS 2003

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 4, 2003

In conjunction with this week's TMA Telephony Voice User Interface Conference (TVUI), the VoiceXML Forum proudly announces its strong support for the W3C's release last week of VoiceXML 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation. The Forum sees VoiceXML 2.0 as a stable standard for creating voice applications, providing a key building block for enabling multimodal interaction on the World Wide Web.

"With the W3C's announcement last week, there is clear, industry-wide momentum behind VoiceXML 2.0, as the dominant language for deploying open-standards voice applications," says Eric Jackson of VoiceGenie, chair of the VoiceXML Forum's Marketing Committee. "The VoiceXML Forum is excited to strongly support this further evidence of the maturity of VoiceXML. Today, millions of calls around the world are answered by VoiceXML-based infrastructure. Over the next year, we expect further adoption of VoiceXML compared to legacy, proprietary-based IVR systems."

The VoiceXML Forum also announces that it will again use the annual AVIOS show as the venue for its third Users' Group Meeting (UGM). This year's UGM, set for 3 April 2003 in San Jose, will also enable the Forum to launch several of its key work items for 2003. The one-day UGM, intended for everyone from developers to senior-level business executives, is the industry's premiere event describing the business and technical benefits of deploying VoiceXML-based applications. Attendees will be able to learn about the latest trends through real-life case studies of voice and touch-tone based services; multimodal applications; usability design and testing; implementation testing; and developer certification, among other key topics. The agenda and secure online registration form are available at http://www.avios.com/conference.htm.

"While our past UGM's have been successful, featuring presentations and panel discussions by key technologists and business leaders from the VoiceXML industry, we're anticipating this to be our best session yet," says Jonathan Engelsma of Motorola, chair of the VoiceXML Forum's Education Committee. "With the recent release of VoiceXML 2.0 as a candidate recommendation by the W3C, the speech technology industry is truly energized. The UGM will provide a firsthand perspective on what is happening within the VoiceXML community, and provide ample opportunity to meet and mingle with people who are making it happen."

The VoiceXML Forum, driving forward several key initiatives in 2003, will use its April UGM to share its current work with the industry. Among those initiatives are a VoiceXML developer certification program, a VoiceXML conformance test suite, and a platform certification program. The VoiceXML 2.0 Candidate Recommendation and the accompanying Implementation Report Test Suite provide a solid base for interoperability of applications, platforms and tools.

The VoiceXML Forum's Conformance Committee is building upon the W3C VoiceXML Implementation Report Test Suite to create a full conformance test suite, and an associated testing program, that provide a basis for vendor interoperability and, more importantly, application portability. Application portability improves the attractiveness of the language to those who buy equipment and to those who develop applications. The Forum's test suite will be expanded to include related W3C technologies such as the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification, and the Speech Synthesis Markup Language.

All parties are encouraged to join the Forum's public conformance discussion group, available at www.voicexml.org. VoiceXML Forum members contribute directly to the development of the test suite through the Conformance Committee.

About the VoiceXML Forum

The VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization that formed to create and promote the Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML). With the backing and contributions of its diverse membership, including key industry leaders, since its inception the VoiceXML Forum has successfully driven market acceptance of VoiceXML through a wide array of speech-enabled applications. Currently the Forum has over 360 member companies, distributed across three membership categories (Sponsor, Promoter and Supporter). Membership in the Forum is open to any interested company.

The core activities of the VoiceXML Forum are driven by its four active committees: Education, Marketing, Tools and Conformance. The Forum publishes VoiceXML Review (http://www.voicexmlreview.org), an electronic magazine dedicated to VoiceXML, featuring insightful articles written by industry experts. Its public website (www.voicexml.org) is a rich, one-stop source for information about VoiceXML and related technologies.

For more information about the VoiceXML Forum or the upcoming Users Group Meeting, please visit www.voicexml.org or contact the VoiceXML Forum Administrative Team at [phone] or [e-mail]. The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO).