Rhetorical Enters German Market with Text-to-Speech Solutions

BOSTON, MA and SCOTLAND - Rhetorical, a developer of text-to-speech (TTS) voice synthesis solutions, is expanding its operation into Germany following last month's launch of rVoice4 with its German voice module. Set to claim part of a multi-million euro speech technology market, the company has secured a strategic partnership with Germany's provider of voice and computer interfaces, SemanticEdge and has now appointed a senior sales representative to build a team out of Frankfurt. Rhetorical also expects to confirm its first major German contract within the next few weeks. This will be the first deployment of the company's synthesized German voice, in a deal brokered by SemanticEdge. Rhetorical plans a major sales and marketing program in Germany headed up by Klemens Rosenwald who joined Rhetorical this month. Formerly with Sophos, the security software company, Herr Rosenwald brings vast experience of the German technology and telecomms markets key to the company's expansion plans. Klemens Rosenwald said: "I am delighted to be a part of Rhetorical's expansion into Europe. The German market presents a number of opportunities for Rhetorical's natural sounding text-to-speech products. Our partnership with SemanticEdge immediately puts us in a commanding position. "Where most technological development within TTS has been concentrated on English speaking languages, Rhetorical's excellent German voice, which bears all the natural nuances and intonation that the rVoice technology brings, has every opportunity to generate huge interest. "With the first deployment set for December through a contract within the financial services market, I am confident that others will quickly follow." Last month, Rhetorical launched the latest version of its TTS package rVoice4. The new package is capable of speaking in multiple languages and capable of converting any form of written German into naturally sounding speech. Marc Moens, CEO for Rhetorical Systems said: "We have been working closely with several European companies and recognized the importance of establishing a strong sales and operations team at the heart of the European market. Klemens' appointment is the first stage in that process. "In Germany, there has been considerable interest in Rhetorical's technology- especially since we launched rVoice4. This market has great potential for us and has been chosen as a key target as it presents the opportunity to both help drive revenue and establish the company's dominance in what is still an emerging market." Lupo Pape, CEO SemanticEdge said: "We have integrated Rhetorical`s rVoice4 in various call center applications in the banking and mail-order domain. Our customers are enthusiastic about the new voice. We can now entirely automate the 1st level support of call centers with flexible and dynamically generated dialogs, without falling back on pre-recorded prompts. Rhetorical did a quantum leap in speech synthesis."