Voice Processing: Lucent and Unisys Propel Speech Technology Deployment with Expanded Alliance - Unisys' Natural Language Speech Assistant voice recognition software, Lucent's CentreVu Response Solutions telephone management software - Company Business and Marketing

EDGE, On & About AT&T, March 15, 1999

Unisys Corporation and Lucent Technologies, Inc. Monday announced an agreement allowing Lucent to license Unisys award-winning Natural Language Speech Assistant (NLSA) tool suite.

Under terms of the agreement, Lucent will integrate NLSA with its CentreVu Response Solutions, a suite of offerings that provides customer care applications based on Integrated Voice Response (IVR) technology. CentreVu Response Solutions is based on Lucent's INTUITY CONVERSANT platform.

The integration of the two companies' technologies dramatically simplifies the development of natural language understanding speech telephony applications, making speech systems accessible to a broader market. As a result of the agreement, Unisys pioneering NLSA technology now will be available to Lucent IVR developers worldwide, enabling them to build complex speech-based applications for CentreVu Response Solutions more quickly and easily.

Natural language speech systems often replace touch-tone menu systems for applications such as phone banking. The systems select key words and phrases that callers speak in a natural voice, such as "I want to open a new account." This capability simplifies the caller's experience and dramatically expands the potential for new types of self-service applications, providing businesses with substantial cost savings and opportunities for new revenue.

Unisys NLSA simplifies the development and deployment of natural language applications with easy-to-use tools that streamline voice-user interface design, testing, grammar creation and word meaning analysis. Average development and testing time is reduced from months to days.

Unisys NLSA is also the only natural language technology that is speech-recognizer independent, offering Lucent developers a common interface for developing spoken language applications without being tied to the speech recognition engine deployed. This allows developers to "snap" speech recognition engines in and out of their programs based on business requirements or technology improvements.

"We want speech application development to be as easy and open as possible," said Denis Aull, director of Response Offers, Lucent Technologies. "Integrating the Unisys NLSA and INTUITY CONVERSANT technology delivers the strongest, yet simplest, solution we've seen for developing and deploying speech-based applications. It opens our platform to many speech recognition engines."

The agreement marks the second integrated offering under an alliance formed by the two companies in November, 1998, when Unisys and Lucent Speech Solutions agreed to integrate NLSA with Lucent's state-of-the-art text-to-speech and automatic speech recognizer engines.

This integrated software package, which will be available in the second quarter of 1999, provides a seamless connection between the speech recognition tools and engines, allowing developers to dramatically reduce development time and enable faster deployment of speech-based applications.

"Tools like NLSA that make it faster and easier to develop and deliver speech applications without requiring complex programming skills help bring more natural speech applications to the market," said Joe Yaworski, vice president and general manager, Unisys Natural Language Understanding business initiative. "By working with Lucent, we are giving developers around the world who are familiar with the Lucent CONVERSANT environment access to these benefits."

As part of the new agreement, NLSA also will be integrated with Lucent's Voice@Work, which enables developers to create custom applications for the INTUITY CONVERSANT platform. Because the Unisys Natural Language Speech Interpreter will be incorporated into CentreVu

Response Solutions, developers can dramatically cut the time to deploy speech applications. The environment will include support for multiple languages, formats for speaking dates, numbers and currencies in any language supported by the speech recognizer engine. A true innovation for developers, the combination of Voice@Work with NLSA opens the platform to a wide range of speech engines in a single development environment.

Unisys NLSA will be available as part of Lucent's CentreVu Response Solutions in May, 1999.

Lucent's CentreVu Response Solutions, based on the INTUITY CONVERSANT platform, uses advanced voice response technology to collect and provide a wide array of information to callers through voice and fax.

CentreVu Response Solutions can respond to inquiries and handle entire transactions 24 hours a day. With advanced software, INTUITY CONVERSANT can transfer callers to the correct line after callers speak the desired name, and can support natural language speech recognition.

The Natural Language Speech Assistant is an advanced speech application development tool set. Unisys NLSA provides application developers not only with the tools for designing and creating speech applications, but also provides for application project management, development methodology and testing.