NEW YORK, April 6, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- Voicenet, Inc. (VNET:OTCBB) today announced the appointment to the Board of Directors of the Rt. Hon. Dr. The Lord Gilbert. Lord Gilbert has served as a Government Minister in the United Kingdom under three Prime Ministers. He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1974-75); Minister for Transport (1975-76); and Minister of State for Defence (1976-79 and 1997 -99). He has been a member of a number of Select Committees of the House of Commons, including the Expenditure, Defence, and Trade and Industry Committees. He was the senior opposition member of the Committee on Intelligence and Security from its creation in 1994 until April 1997.
Lord Gilbert (then Dr. John Gilbert) served on the Board of Voicenet, Inc. from its incorporation in 1996 until May 1997 when his appointment as a Minister in the UK Government required that he step down from the Board. He also serves several other companies in Europe, the US and Australia as an advisor and board member. Born in 1927, Lord Gilbert was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford and has a Ph.D. in International Economics and Statistics from New York University. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Canada before entering the House of Commons in 1970.
About Voicenet:
Voicenet is a voice technology company that has developed voice based applications and a voice operating system platform which enables cellular and land based telephone users to access and create their e-mail and faxes on a real-time interactive basis. The proprietary, patent-pending interactive voice operating system ("VOS") architecture and platform utilizes a best-of-breed structure employing licensed technology where appropriate from leaders in voice-to-text and text-to-voice software, including that developed by Voicenet's parent company, Voicenet (Aust.), Ltd., headquartered in Australia, and the parent's licensing and marketing partner, Lernout & Hauspie, the world's leading voice recognition software company. The Company's VOS platform allows a phone user to retrieve or create faxes and e-mails over a cellular or land-based telephone. Additionally, the company's VOS is capable of enabling a cellular phone user to more easily access the Internet utilizing Wireless Access Protocal ("WAP") through voice commands and to retrieve Internet Web page text utilizing its proprietary HTML text-to-speech voice system.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Expressions of future goals and similar expressions including without limitation such words as: "expects", "believes", "seeks" and "anticipates", reflecting something other than historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, and other factors. The actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligations to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.