Rhetorical and BBN Technologies Sign Speech Technology Licensing Agreement

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND and CAMBRIDGE, MA - BBN Technologies, a Verizon company, and Rhetorical have signed a licensing agreement involving the sale of speech-recognition and language-processing technologies. The agreement gives BBN Technologies rights to integrate current and future versions of Rhetorical's text-to-speech (TTS) technology in BBN's speech recognition system HARK. "This combination of BBN's and Rhetorical's strengths will result in powerful speech products and solutions," said Marc Moens, president and CEO of Rhetorical. "BBN has a long history in speech and language processing, and we are proud to have them as a partner." "The agreement between BBN and Rhetorical is a natural fit as both companies provide complementary speech technologies," said Marie Meteer, director of Call Center Speech Solutions at BBN. "This will allow us to take advanced speech products and solutions to the marketplace. Rhetorical is emerging as a provider of world-class text-to-speech technology. We are delighted to be working with a company that shares BBN's dedication to product leadership and innovation."