University of Pennsylvania Deploys Voice ReQuest

DALLAS, TX - Philips Speech Processing, a business unit of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) and a developer of speech recognition technology, announced that the University of Pennsylvania will deploy Voice ReQuest Campus Edition, Philips' speech-enabled call routing system for universities and campus-based organizations with 100,000 or more students, faculty members and employees. By allowing callers to reach the desired party by speaking their request, Voice ReQuest eliminates hold times and saves callers the hassle of remembering extensions or correct name spellings. While Penn's initial roll out of Voice ReQuest Campus Edition will accommodate 50,000 student and faculty names, the system scales to support a number of names and can also route calls to departments such as "Dean's Office," "Engineering Department," "Admissions," etc. "We're initially deploying Voice ReQuest to help callers reach Penn students and faculty after hours, on weekends and holidays," said Nydia LaPlante, Penn's associate director of telecommunications. "Along with allowing us to provide 24x7x365 service, the system is extremely user friendly. Callers only need to know the name of the person they wish to reach, not the telephone number, which can be hard to remember or change over the course of a semester. In addition to raising the level of service we provide, Voice ReQuest's' reliability and ease of deployment were strong factors in our decision to implement this technology." "Philips is a pioneer and leading innovator in voice dialing technology. Our Voice ReQuest system has a proven track record and is by far the most advanced voice-driven call routing product on the market today," said Frank Caris, president of the Dallas-based telephony division of Philips Speech Processing. "Penn's decision to deploy Voice ReQuest Campus Edition attests to the products' ease of use and ability to improve communications. We're delighted to partner with this leading institution, and we look forward to continued success as we aggressively market Voice Request Campus Edition to universities worldwide."