Kirusa and SpeechWorks Announce First GPRS Trial of Multimodal Applications on Bouygues Telecom's GPRS Network

Berkeley Heights, NJ, Boston, MA, and Paris, France, July 17, 2002:  Kirusa, the leading worldwide provider of multimodal platforms enabling delivery of multimodal applications to wireless devices, together with SpeechWorks International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPWX), a global leader in speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies and services, announced today the initiation of a multimodal trial on the French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom’s GPRS networks in France. This marks both a first integration of a multimodal platform in a real 2.5G mobile network environment, and a first network implementation of simultaneous multimodality, where voice and visual information seamlessly interact.

By integrating Kirusa’s multimodal platform into Bouygues Telecom’s GPRS environment, Kirusa and Bouygues Telecom have initiated what is also a first study of multimodal ergonomics within an actual network. Bouygues Telecom is developing a suite of applications designed to explore the human factors of multimodality.

Kirusa will install the Kirusa Multimodal Platform in France to support the trial. Kirusa's multimodal platform, which offers SMS, sequential and simultaneous multimodality, allows wireless phone and PDA users to access information by speaking a command, or by using visual signals such as typing or gesturing to their handset. Application results can be delivered visually on the device screen, by voice, or through innovative combinations of both voice and visual modes. The multimodal platform installed at Bouygues Telecom leverages advanced French and English language speech solutions from SpeechWorks, including the OpenSpeech Recognizer™ recognition software, OpenSpeech Browser™ Platform Integration Kit, and Speechify™ text-to-speech software. The multimodal platform utilizes distributed speech recognition, which splits the speech processing on the device and network, enhancing the performance and accuracy of the speech recognition and reducing the bandwidth requirements over GPRS networks.

Bouygues Telecom had evaluated several multimodal platform suppliers before selecting the offering from Kirusa.

“Multimodality is a disruptive technology that will drive widespread adoption of wireless data applications. We’re convinced that multimodality will empower our subscribers and application developers with unique capabilities, and open new horizons for revenue and profitability,” said Georges Passet, Chief Technical Officer of Bouygues Telecom. “We view multimodality as a core service from our network to the application providers, just as location-based information is a core service. After an exhaustive evaluation process in our US labs, we believe the platform offered by Kirusa is the most advanced and production-ready from a mobile operator’s perspective, and we have been delighted with the support and response from the Kirusa team.”

"This inaugural trial with Bouygues Telecom provides Kirusa with an incredible entrée into the European wireless market, while giving the opportunity to quantify, for the first time, the rewards that multimodality can bring to a 2.5G service provider," said Dr. Inderpal Singh Mumick, CEO and founder of Kirusa. "Multimodal technology is the prerequisite to mass market adoption of wireless data services. As an early adopter of multimodal solutions, Bouygues Telecom is a key partner and customer of Kirusa in driving adoption of multimodal solutions amongst European consumers and enterprises."

“SpeechWorks is excited to work with Kirusa on the Bouygues Telecom multimodal trial,” said Alan Schwartz, vice president of business development and head of the Automotive and Mobile Devices Customer Focus Unit at SpeechWorks. “SpeechWorks’ partnership with Kirusa and our commitment to multimodal solutions that improve user interfaces will help mobile operators such as Bouygues Telecom leverage the power of its 2.5G network, delivering the network’s full potential to end users, and as a result, driving the market adoption and deployment of multimodal applications.”

About Bouygues Telecom

With 6400 employees, 6.1 million customers and a network covering 98.5% of the French population, Bouygues Telecom has established itself as the company that democratised the mobile telephony market in France. As the top French operator by number of destinations covered, the company is one of the top global operators, with international coverage in over 150 countries due to roaming agreements with over 300 national operators.

For more information, visit www.bouyguestelecom.fr.

About SpeechWorks, Inc.

Through the power of SpeechWorks technologies, the human voice is all a person needs to access instant information and conduct transactions from a phone or communications device. Around the world, customer service innovators such as Amtrak, America Online, Microsoft, Thrifty Car Rental and United Airlines are realizing returns on SpeechWorks applications that consistently delight and serve customers 24 hours a day. With over 170 partners, SpeechWorks (Nasdaq: SPWX) delivers natural language speech recognition, speaker verification and text-to-speech (TTS) solutions to leading corporations, telecommunications providers, device manufacturers and government organizations worldwide. For a description of our products, services and unique customer programs such as the SpeechWorks Here S.T.E.P.™ (Speech Technology Evaluation Process) program call 617.428.4444 or visit www.speechworks.com.

SpeechWorks, OpenSpeech Recognizer, OpenSpeech Browser, Speechify and SpeechWorks Here S.T.E.P. are trademarks or registered trademarks of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About Kirusa

Kirusa is one of the leading global developers of Mobile Social Media and Value Added Services enabling mobile subscribers to reach out to their family and friends. Kirusa’s solutions include the hugely successful Kirusa Voice SMS service, the world’s most advanced Voice SMS solution, used by over 30 carriers around the world. Kirusa has pioneered a suite of social media applications that facilitate mobile subscribers to interact through voice, including the Call-n-Tweet application which helps users update their Twitter status using voice. Kirusa provides an open platform with APIs to enable third parties to offer mobile applications services to mobile subscribers. Used by mobile subscribers millions of times daily, Kirusa solutions are built on its patented and patent pending technology and its highly reliable and scalable open multimodal platform. Kirusa has been recognized as one of top 100 technology companies by Silicon India, and one of top 25 emerging technology companies by Smart Techie magazine. Headquartered in New Jersey and led by an experienced team of wireless telecom executives and technologists, Kirusa has offices in three continents. ‘Kirusa Voice SMS,’ is a trademark of Kirusa, Inc.

For more information visit: www.kirusa.com.

Media Contacts

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Navneet Anand
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