Nuance and Angel.com Team to Deliver Voice Automation Solutions to Small to Mid-Sized Business

MENLO PARK, Calif. and McLEAN, Va. - Nuance forms a strategic relationship to bring voice automation solutions to the small to mid-size business (SMB) market. Angel.com's Web-based tools and pay-per-use pricing model, combined with Nuance's voice technologies and platform, will make these solutions accessible to businesses of all sizes.

More than 1,400 small business customers, such as real estate agents, restaurant owners, doctors and retail shops, currently turn to Angel.com for voice automation solutions. Requiring no hardware or software purchases, Angel.com's service allows businesses to create interactive speech applications - called "Voice Sites" - via a Web browser and self-service tools. End users can automate business processes such as customer support, marketing campaigns and front desk services ("virtual receptionists"). Angel.com is also used for specialty applications such as grass roots campaigns, real estate audio tours and event information hotlines. Connected to standard toll-free or local phone numbers, all Angel.com Voice Sites are billed on a per-minute basis.

As part of the alliance, Angel.com's self-service speech solutions will be made available on the Nuance Voice Platform™. The Nuance Voice Platform™ supports VoiceXML 2.0. Angel.com's solutions will also leverage Nuance's text-to-speech engine, Nuance Vocalizer™. Nuance Vocalizer™ converts text in a database into spoken words, allowing companies to automate the delivery of information over the phone.