VoiceXML Forum Endorses Release of VoiceXML 2.0 Recommendation by W3C; Readies Platform Certification Program

Vendors Encouraged to Submit Products for Certification Now

PISCATAWAY, N.J., Mar. 16, 2004 — The VoiceXML Forum today announced its support for the release of the Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 2.0 Recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). VoiceXML is a technology essential to making Internet content and information accessible via voice and phone. A W3C Recommendation is the equivalent of a Web standard, indicating that the specification is stable, that the specification contributes to Web interoperability, and that the W3C membership favors its adoption by the industry. More than 370 companies in the VoiceXML Forum support today's announcement by the W3C and have developed and deployed VoiceXML-based applications, products and services, including AT&T, BeVocal, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Motorola, Inc., Nuance, Tellme Networks, Vocalocity, VoiceGenie Technologies, Inc. and West Corporation.

In support of today’s announcement by the W3C, the VoiceXML Forum announced that the VoiceXML Platform Certification Program will be launched next quarter, following the conclusion of the Program’s pilot phase. VoiceXML platform vendors are encouraged to submit their products for testing and certification by the VoiceXML Forum. Platforms will be certified on a first-come, first-served basis. To submit a platform for certification, please visit the Forum’s website at www.voicexml.org. VoiceXML-certified platforms will be listed on the Forum’s Web site.

The Platform Certification Program consists of a series of tests to determine whether a VoiceXML platform is fully compliant with the latest release of the VoiceXML standard. The VoiceXML Platform Certification Program will test for compliance with the VoiceXML 2.0 Recommendation and the W3C’s VoiceXML 2.0 Implementation Report.

To assist vendors in preparing their platforms for certification, the Conformance Test Suite to be used in the Platform Certification Program is currently available, at no charge, for public download from the VoiceXML Forum website at www.voicexml.org. Members can also download a test harness to assist in executing the tests locally, or can run the tests directly from the Forum’s website.

VoiceXML in the Industry
“VoiceXML is the standard scripting language for rendering Web pages over the telephone,” said Dan Miller, senior analyst at Zelos Group. “VoiceXML 2.0-compliant products are already on the market from core technology, platform, development tool and hosted services providers, and there is broad industry adoption. More importantly, purchase decision-makers among the major speech-enabled enterprises, including financial services, travel, telcos, see VoiceXML compliance as a requirement. It gives them bargaining leverage across vendors and solutions providers and carries with it the promise of re-usable code and portability.”

“There is a huge momentum behind VoiceXML right now," said Art Schoeller, analyst at Yankee Group. "Based on corporate requests for proposals (RFPs) and actual deployments, that is easy to see."

VoiceXML has been broadly adopted and embraced in the industry. Today, more than 10,000 commercial VoiceXML-based applications have been deployed worldwide across a diverse set of industries. VoiceXML powers a range of both mission- and business-critical applications, such as customer care, directory assistance, telematics and unified messaging.

Cingular Wireless, one of the largest wireless carriers in the country, uses VoiceXML and BeVocal (www.bevocal.com) to provide voice-activated dialing, information and other services to more than 22 million subscribers. With VoiceXML, BeVocal was easily able to integrate to Cingular’s account, billing and provisioning systems. With VoiceXML, Cingular was able to deploy these applications faster and for far less than other options they considered.

Tellme Networks, Inc. (www.tellme.com) and Song™ Delta Air Lines' high-quality, low-fare service, have taken a fresh approach to customer service over the phone. 1-800-Fly-Song provides callers with a simplified experience to find flights and buy tickets using innovative voice technology. 1-800-Fly-Song simply delivers the information a caller requests and matches it with the lowest available fares for flights selected. Song is the first low-fare service to provide callers fare and schedule information using voice recognition. Calling 1-800-Fly Song is a single point of contact for everything customers need from the carrier, including flight status information, fares and schedules, reservations, travel information, Web support and baggage assistance. The technology behind 1-800-Fly-Song is voice recognition and the VoiceXML Internet-telecom standard running on Tellme's Voice Application Network. The service was created by Tellme's experts in voice user interface design to simply, quickly and reliably provide callers with the information they need to get them on their way.

HTI Voice Solutions and Nuance (www.nuance.com) recently teamed together to deliver a voice automated Credit Card Account Management Application on the VoiceXML-standards based Nuance Voice Platform for Valero Energy Corporation. Valero Energy offers a variety of credit cards that are accepted at all Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Total, Beacon, Ultramar and Shamrock locations across the country. The new voice-driven application will allow Valero's retail credit card holders access to account information 24 hours a day, seven days a week via Nuance speech recognition. Using only their voice to answer system prompts, callers will be able to activate new cards, report lost or stolen cards, make payments by phone, and more without the need for agent intervention. These services will be available to callers in English as well as Spanish in the early 2004.

About the VoiceXML Forum
The VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization 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 more than 370 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 the VoiceXML Review, 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. The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO).

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For media inquiries, please contact:
Christian Danella
Prequent, Inc. (for the VoiceXML Forum)
christian@prequent.com
+1 408 307 1236

For all other inquiries, please contact:
Cindy Tiritilli
Program Manager, VoiceXML Forum
c/o IEEE-ISTO
+1 732 465 6464
voicexml-admin@voicexml.org
www.voicexml.org

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