Kirusa and Telisma announce the use of their solutions in a France Telecom trial of multimodal GPRS applications

France Telecom initiates industry's first exploration of multimodal applications and services in a commercial GPRS network with multilingual capabilities on an integrated Kirusa/Telisma platform

Berkeley Heights, NJ, and Paris, France, September 10, 2002: Kirusa, the leading worldwide provider of multimodal platforms enabling delivery of multimodal applications to wireless devices, together with Telisma, European leader in speech technologies for telecommunications companies, announced today that they had entered into an agreement with France Telecom to perform multimodal trials using the Orange GPRS network in France. This landmark trial has been under way for several weeks, and early results from the trial have been very promising. During the trials, a multimodal solution based on Kirusa's multimodal platform and Telisma's VoiceXML kit, as well as human factors and ergonomics of several forms of multimodality will be evaluated for the first time ever in a live, commercially available GPRS network environment. The trial will continue for the next several months, and features real Orange and France Telecom subscribers interacting with multimodal applications in scientifically designed and instrumented evaluations over the Orange GPRS network in France.

France Telecom provides wireless services under the Orange brand. Orange is Europe's number two mobile operator by footprint, with operations in 22 countries across Europe and beyond, and aims to have a presence in markets covering 1.5 billion people worldwide by 2005. As at the end of March 2002, Orange had over 12.7 million customers in the UK, 18.3 million in France and approximately 40.5 million controlled customers worldwide.

Several business units in France Telecom, including Equant, joint partner with Orange in the "Mobile Internet for Business" unit, view multimodality as a way to alleviate the user interface problems their customers face while using wireless handheld devices, and as a clear value differentiator for their GPRS networks, driving adoption and revenue. This widespread interest has led France Telecom to do one centralized evaluation of Kirusa's multimodal platform and Telisma's speech technologies.

Kirusa's multimodal platform, offering SMS, sequential and simultaneous multimodality, enables 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. The multimodal platform installed at France Telecom is tightly integrated with advanced French and English language speech solutions from Telisma, including Philsoft®, Telisma's "full software" telco-grade ASR engine, and Telisma's VoiceXML kit, which conforms to the VoiceXML 2.0 standard defined by the W3C and which has in addition been optimized for multimodal environments. Using the integrated Kirusa and Telisma solution, application results can be delivered visually on the device screen, by voice, or through innovative combinations of both voice and visual modes. Sequential multimodality allows users to seamlessly alternate between voice and visual interactions on mass market, off-the-shelf mobile handsets. Simultaneous multimodality, allows users to use both voice and visual interactions at the same time on advanced, PDA-like, handsets.

Jean-Jacques Damlamian, Group Executive Vice President at France Telecom, said, "We are convinced that multimodality is key to increase the adoption and revenue from services offered by France Telecom, through Orange, Wanadoo and Equant. Kirusa and Telisma have well positioned us for industry leadership in the multimodal space."

Solenn Botrel, Program Manager for this project in FTRD, the R&D division of France Telecom, added, "We have been testing the multimodal platform and multimodal applications for several weeks, and have been very pleased with its performance. The Kirusa and Telisma teams are very professional, have supported us very well, and continue to respond to our needs flawlessly."

"Kirusa continues its commitment to the European market with the delivery of its multimodal solution to one of Europe's leading telecommunications groups, in partnership with Europe's leading speech vendor," said Dr. Inderpal Singh Mumick, CEO and founder of Kirusa. "There is increasing agreement worldwide that multimodality holds the key to broad market adoption of mobile applications and the unleashing of bold new revenue streams from wireless data. The investments being made by France Telecom in multimodality, and the early results from the evaluations, provide further credence to the ability of multimodality to significantly increase revenue from mobile applications. "

Laurent Balaine, CEO of Telisma, said, "Multimodality is a real catalyst which should have the effect of boosting the mobile applications and services market. Designed by skillful ergonomics specialists and including sophisticated technology, multimodal services are an extremely attractive proposition for users. They will provide subscribers voice access to services which where previously only available via WAP. The key will be to insure subscribers will spontaneously adapt these services, feeling at ease with an intuitive and simple interaction combining voice, touch, and text. All this is consistent with the inexorable progress of the voice technology in everyday life and confirms Telisma's vision of voice applications as the point of convergence for all means of communication."

About France Telecom

France Telecom is one of the world's leading telecommunications carriers, with over 91 million customers on five continents (220 countries and territories) and consolidated operating revenues of 43 billion Euro for 2001. Through its major international brands, including Orange, Wanadoo, Equant and GlobeCast, France Telecom provides businesses, consumers and other carriers with a complete portfolio of solutions that spans local, long-distance and international telephony, wireless, Internet, multimedia, data, broadcast and cable TV services.

France Telecom is the second-largest wireless operator and the number three Internet access provider in Europe, and a world leader in telecommunications solutions for multinational corporations. France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) is listed on the Paris and New York stock exchanges.

About Telisma

Created in August 2000, Telisma designs, develops and sells speech recognition software products for use in telecommunications and enterprise applications. Telisma has developed innovative speech recognition technologies The Telisma products and consulting operations enable telecommunications operators, service providers and enterprises to easily create and deploy large-scale speech-enabled services.

Philsoft® v3, Telisma's "full software" ASR engine is characterized by its unequalled level of robustness on the market, notably in mobile telephony and noisy environments. Developed and marketed by Telisma, this engine is the product of over 15 years of research and implementation at France Telecom R&D and provides the best recognition rates on the market.Telisma is a private limited company backed by major European investors: 3i, Innovacom and AGF Private Equity.

For more information about Telisma please visit www.telisma.com.

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

Kirusa
Navneet Anand
GreyMatters Communications
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