Atos Origin Incorporates Telisma's Carrier-grade Speech Technologies

PARIS, FRANCE - Atos Origin, an IT services firms in Europe, and Telisma, a European developer of speech technologies for telecommunications, announce that they have signed a commercial and technical agreement to target businesses and telecommunications firms. This resale licence agreement involves Telisma's key technologies: its Voice Distributed Framework, the backbone of multiclient/multiserver real-time communications technology; Philsoft, a carrier-grade speech recognition engine; and the VoiceXML Prototyping kit, designed to assist customers in testing new services. This agreement is a tangible sign of Atos Origin's desire to enhance and diversify its operations in the area of speech technology integration. According to René Hubert, director of the company's Services and Networks department, "Speech recognition accounts for a growing share of our business. Our mission at Atos Origin is to enhance the value of our customers' business. Speech technology services are a very attractive, effective means of providing our customers with projects that use innovative technology to create significant value-added." Telisma's Marketing Director, Jean-Jacques Devaux, also emphasizes this dynamic. "Telecommunications firms and major corporations are looking for speech-based applications that are easy to access and simple to use, and Telisma's technological offerings answer this need perfectly. With extensive expertise in its field, Atos Origin is positioning itself as a specialist in voice-activated applications. In addition to running Telisma software on its proprietary platforms, Atos Origin can now integrate our speech technologies into the major platforms on the market. With its proven expertise in speech technology, Atos Origin is also a key partner to several major telecommunications firms in Europe and will allow us to accelerate the development of speech-based services for a wider audience." In the face of increasingly demanding requirements among telecommunications providers and businesses, Atos Origin has selected Telisma for the native density of its technology and its recognition rates, particularly in environments with considerable background noise. "We especially admire the quick response times to oral commands, which enhance convenience for users. With its distributed, modular architecture, the technology can be easily adapted to growing needs while always providing the level of availability needed for services," says Jean-Alain Petit, manager of the speech unit in Atos Origin's Integration division. A version of the MRCP* standard should become available in the near future.