Alcatel's Genesys to Acquire VoiceGenie

PARIS - Alcatel plans for its Genesys subsidiary to acquire privately held VoiceGenie in an undisclosed cash transaction. The deal is expected to close in a few weeks.

Founded in 2000, VoiceGenie is a provider of voice self service solutions, with a software platform based on VoiceXML. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, VoiceGenie has established a position in the worldwide Voice Portal market, serving carriers and application service providers (ASPs), customers include Verizon, AT&T, and Orange.

According to recent Garter/Dataquest estimates, VoiceGenie is number two in market share position, with Genesys in number one position. Genesys' desire is to accelerate the trend away from legacy, proprietary IVRs (interactive voice response) to new VoiceXML software standards. In addition, Genesys will expand its offerings for service providers allowing them to deploy a variety of internal and network services, including managed services.

"The increased adoption of speech recognition provides a strong driver for companies to replace aging proprietary IVR systems with the standards-based voice portal systems," Gartner analyst Drew Kraus wrote in a recent report. "In addition, vendors announced end-of-life plans for their proprietary IVR systems, causing some companies to accelerate their plans to replace these systems."

"By acquiring VoiceGenie, just three months after acquiring GMK, a leading provider of self service solutions in Brazil, we reaffirm our commitment to the voice self service market," said Wes Hayden, president and CEO of Genesys.

Genesys plans on keeping much of the workforce of VoiceGenie in tact with the Toronto, Canada offices remaining open as a center of excellence. The deal is expected to close in 30 days and Alcatel paid approximately 1.5 times projected 2006 revenues for VoiceGenie. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Alcatel earnings.

See this briefing from Genesys executives for more information.