Message Technologies Announces Strategic Partnership with ifbyphone

Message Technologies partnered with ifbyphone. As a result of this agreement, MTI will provide speech IVR hosting services to ifbyphone, a new media company focused on the distribution of recorded and text-based information and family friendly entertainment via voice.

ifbyphone, a recipient of funding from Cogitations delivers access to a variety of information using the latest speech technologies. ifbyphone will be rolling out a number of applications hosted on MTI premises over the course of the next year that will integrate voice recognition, text-to-speech and VoiceXML capabilities. The ifbyphone applications enable users to virtually navigate through a large amount of information by using their cell phone, home phone, or business phone, without having to use a keypad or browse the Web using a small cell phone screen. ifbyphone allows voice-enabled interaction with a number of applications to access the latest news, listen to email, search thousands of RSS feeds, access hundreds of blogs, play fun games such as Texas Hold 'em Poker, multiple player trivia, and enjoy Interactive Fiction for the first time by voice.

ifbyphone is planning on deploying several other applications, including a notification service for schools and non-profit organizations, within the next 12 months on their voice distribution platform.

Message Technologies will host ifbyphone's application in a VoiceXML hosting environment. MTI will also furnish ifbyphone with telephony services, including a beta staging and testing platform before live deployment of the application. The beta test version of Ifbyphone's application will be rolled out in July and the application will go into final production in the fall. MTI will offer back-end IVR and VXML application programming support, and 24/7 diagnostic and technical services.

"In today's rapidly moving world of technology, time-to-market is paramount. By partnering with MTI we have been able to produce a carrier grade application in only six months. In fact, ifbyphone is an excellent example of a virtual company. While our home office is in a Chicago suburb, most of our developers are in Israel, and our staff and vendors are spread across America," said ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro.