TDC to Offer Automated Directory Enquiry Service Based on Philips' Speech Technology; University of Nebraska Implements Philips' Voice ReQuest Campus Edition

AACHEN, GERMANY and DALLAS, TX - Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) announced that TDC Tele Danmark has selected Philips for the commercial roll-out of a fully-automated, speech-enabled, directory enquiry system. The decision to commercially deploy the system follows an extensive testing period of a pilot system. The new directory enquiry service can provide callers with the residential and business telephone numbers in Denmark. It will complete the directory services portfolio of TDC by adding the fully automated service, in addition to the existing operator-assisted and Internet services. With the new service, which will be priced at a lower rate than the operator-assisted service, TDC targets new customers that currently do not use the existing operator-assisted service for cost reasons. At the same time, the new service strengthens TDC's position in the market as new providers of directory services enter the recently liberalized Danish market. "We are very proud of the achieved results of the 90 percent dialogue success rate in this fully automated directory assistance project. The performance has been significantly higher than claimed by some competitive systems," said Nils Lenke, Application Manager Directory Assistance at Philips Electronics - Telephony Division. "The pilot proved to us the maturity of speech technology. The results we achieved with Philips were beyond our own expectation," explained Product Manager Kim Hoffmann at TDC Tele Danmark. "We are now able to address a new market segment with a high-quality directory enquiry service at very low cost." The commercial rollout of the fully automated directory assistance system will provide telephone number information for all 3.5 million residential and 400,000 business listings in Denmark. TDC Tele Danmark plans to introduce the new service by the end of this year. University of Nebraska Implements Philips' Voice ReQuest Campus Edition DALLAS, TX - Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), a developer of speech recognition technology, announced that the University of Nebraska - Lincoln has selected Philips' Voice ReQuest Campus Edition to empower its call-routing system with voice-dialing functionality. Today's environment at colleges and universities has become increasingly transitory, with the student body changing each new semester, rotating faculty members, multiple campus locations, and more students attending these institutions every year. Few colleges can afford to constantly publish updated directories, thus current directories rapidly become outdated and leave callers, both internal and external, relying on live operator support to find a requested student, faculty member or department. The University of Nebraska, with over 50,000 students, faculty and staff, had the need to provide a proven solution that would enable callers to reach students, professors, and departments throughout the entire university system by using their voice to speak the name of the requested party. "After carefully reviewing offerings from a number of vendors, Philips' Voice ReQuest rose above all as the best solution to fit the complex call routing needs of the University of Nebraska," explained Rick Haugerud, Assistant Director for Telecommunications at the University of Nebraska. "We are excited about deploying Voice ReQuest's voice dialing technology, and believe this system will provide our callers with unparalleled speech recognition and call routing accuracy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." "When the University of Nebraska recognized the ability to cost-effectively improve its call routing abilities, we were proud to offer them the strongest voice-enabled solution on the market today with our Voice ReQuest Campus Edition, which is specifically designed for institutions of higher learning," said Frank Caris, president of the Dallas-based telephony division of Philips Electronics. "Voice ReQuest's proven track record of accuracy and ROI empowers organizations like the University of Nebraska to improve communications and create a more productive workforce which is dedicated to serving its students."