Rhetorical Signs Agreement with Nortel Networks

EDINBURGH, U K - Rhetorical has signed a reseller agreement with Nortel Networks Periphonics, which will see Rhetorical's rVoice product sold alongside the Nortel Networks IVR platform as a total solution package. The deal cements another route to market for Rhteorical. Rhetorical's rVoice product is to be integrated into Nortel Networks Periphonics extensive customer service range as part of the OSCAR (Open Signal Computing and Analysis Resource) platform. The deal is ongoing and has already resulted in several high profile sales, most notably to SRC (the Speech Recognition Company) for the BBC's FreeView Launch and to British Telecom. The latest rVoice product is capable of speaking many different languages and accents in a clear and natural sounding voice. Rhetorical specifically engineered the core technology of the product so it could rapidly be adapted to suit a world market with new voices being added in a modular fashion instead of needing a complete rewrite of the code. Nortel Networks Periphonics OSCAR solution provides a scalable speech enabled platform, which is easy to adapt depending on customers needs. Capable of running on SPARC/Solaris UNIX or Windows platforms, OSCAR offers natural language speech recognition, speaker verification engines and of course text-to-speech facilities. Nortel Networks Director of Sales for IVR, EMEA, Andy Dennahy, said: "We realised that the relationship with Rhetorical would benefit both our product and our customers. We were actively looking for a top quality text-to-speech solution and believe that Rhetorical's rVoice fulfils this requirement owing to the excellence of its natural sounding accents. " Rhetorical's Chief Executive Officer, Marc Moens, said: "The relationship provides a great opportunity for both sides. The uptake of voice synthesis products continues to climb and through our agreement with Nortel Networks we can reach a huge customer base with the backing of a worldwide partner. In return, our product adds value to Nortel Networks range which will also lead to increased sales."