Mumbai, November 6, 2001
Building on its leadership role in introducing innovative value-added services, Orange today launched Vox - a voice command service which gives users real-time information on news, stocks, cricket and horoscope. The service is available to all Orange users in Mumbai. It marks a new milestone for services provided by mobile phone operators in India as it is by far the most innovative and latest technology in its field to be inducted into the country.
This service, one of the first such deployments in the world, is powered by technology supplied to Orange by OnMobile Systems, USA. OnMobile is the leading technology provider of multi-modal speech-enabled technology for wireless operators worldwide and was incubated out of Infosys. The platform for this service, however, is based on Indian enunciation of English and has been developed assiduously through collection of voice samples within India.
Using a single number 12333 for Vox, any user can speak to the system using natural language English words, hear responses on their Orange handsets, and continue interacting with the system in a user-friendly, interactive manner. Currently the service allows users to:
Users can also personalize the service to match their individual preferences, e.g., favorite stocks, zodiac sign, news categories.
Over the next few months, Orange and OnMobile will continue to work together to increase the number of Voice Command Services offered, and to integrate the popular SMS capability into these services.
Commenting on the launch of Vox, Mr. Asim Ghosh, Managing Director, Hutchison Max Telecom, said, "The deployment of this very innovative Voice Command Services reinforces our commitment to bring the best and latest technology to our Indian subscribers. Over the past 6 months, we have worked closely with OnMobile and Infosys to customize their technology to suit Indian accents and wireless environments. This included tuning the speech recognition technology with over 80,000 samples. We will continue to upgrade and expand on this leadership position we have over the next year. Not many operators in the world have successfully implemented such a technology; we are proud to be one of the first ones to do so. This is an important milestone in our relationship with our subscribers, and I am confident Vox will gain rapid popularity with Orange users."
Mr. S.D. Shibulal, Chairman of OnMobile Systems, and Co-founder and Director of Infosys, said, "We are very happy that OnMobile has been involved in providing this value enhanced innovative service to Orange users. We look forward to a long and fruitful association with Orange and are planning to introduce new services as part of the VOX program over the next few months."
Mr. Arvind Rao, CEO of OnMobile Systems, added, "OnMobile team has successfully developed the world's first multi-modal technology platform which allows wireless operators to deploy advanced voice-data services. Our multi-modal technology integrates voice and SMS, allowing operators to offer user-friendly, real-time, context-rich services which create real value for the end user. These include communications, sports, entertainment, information and other interactive services. The greatest challenge for us was to enable recognition of various accents in India."
Over the next few months, Orange and OnMobile will continue to work together to increase the number of Vox services offered, and to integrate the popular SMS capability into these services.
About Orange
Orange is the preferred mobile phone provider in Mumbai, offering a wide range of Innovative and user-friendly services to over 350,000 subscribers (September 2001, COAI). Through leading edge telecommunication and information technology, 24x7 customer support, and sophisticated value-added services, Orange, an ISO 9000 certified company, assures its users a world-class mobile phone service experience. For more information, visit www.orange.co.in
About OnMobile Systems, Inc.
OnMobile Systems, Inc. provides true mobility by delivering multi-modal technology to carriers (wireless and wireline), enterprises, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) worldwide. The OnMobile multi-modal platform allows wireless subscribers to access and navigate an extensive portfolio of speech-enhanced, location-sensitive applications through the integration of voice, text and graphics. Using OnMobile's multimodal platform and applications, OnMobile's telecom operator customers can begin offering these revenue-generating, multi-modal applications today and easily evolve the platform to support future network technologies. OnMobile was spun out of Infosys Technologies, the largest software and IT consultancy in Asia, in June 2000. For more information, visit www.onmobile.com.
For more information, please contact:
| Arup Saikia | Amrit Singh Deo |
| Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd. | Genesis PR, Mumbai |
| Orange : 9820018601 | Orange : 9820211064 |
| Tel : 431 4000 | Tel : 491 1783 / 460 3028 |
| Fax : 431 1111 | Fax : 491 1788 |
| Email : arup.saikia@orange.co.in | Email : kupadhyay@genesispr.com |
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