Alcatel to Acquire Telera to Enter Voice Self-Service Market for Voice and Web Convergence

PARIS, FRANCE - Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA; NYSE: ALA) announced it has signed an agreement to acquire privately held Telera Corp., a Campbell, Calif., company that provides a voice-web platform using voice extensible markup language (VoiceXML) to make Web content accessible by telephone. Telera will become a part of Alcatel's Genesys contact center software business and will focus initially on the market for voice self-service solutions. In a call today, Allan Mottram, senior vice president of business development for the eBusiness Group at Alcatel, Ad Nederlof, CEO of Genesys, Laurent Philonenko, CTO of Genesys, and Prem Uppaluru, CEO of Telera said that the acquisition will be made for $136 million in Alcatel stock. Telera's $30 million cash position will be used to fund the company's development. Telera will become a part of Alcatel's, Genesys Labs. According to Olivier Houssin, president of Alcatel's eBusiness Group, the acquisition will enable Alcatel to create a VoiceXML center of competency that will be utilized by other Alcatel businesses to enhance product offerings for customers. "Voice access to the Internet will be the spark for a powerful transformation in the way the Web is used and in the consumer services that are made available by enterprises and service providers," said Houssin. "The acquisition of Telera by Alcatel is a critical link in our strategy to build the applications that will drive the transition to converged voice and data networks." "Telera's support for Internet technologies, such as VoiceXML and SIP, is transforming the traditional telecommunications industry by combining the innovation and flexibility of the Internet with the convenience and reliability of the telephone," said Prem Uppaluru, CEO and co-founder of Telera. "We are eager to begin combining the resources of the two companies to accelerate the adoption of converged voice and web solutions in the market." Alcatel's strategy for the enterprise market is to leverage the convergence of voice and data networks to help businesses securely and effectively open their internal networks to the external world. These "borderless enterprises" are more competitive because their networks can support real-time communications with customers, outsourcing vendors and other important partners. Genesys, and now Telera, are critical to this strategy because they provide the first applications that make use of this new paradigm. The acquisition is expected to close in July 2002 subject to approval by Telera's shareholders and other customary closing conditions. For more information concerning this announcement please visit www.telera.com.