NEW YORK, -April 26, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- Voicenet, Inc. (OTCBB:VNET) announced today that Rimpex International S.A. ("Rimpex") has secured an agreement to supply Telefonica CTC, a major Latin American tier-one telecommunications carrier group, with voice recognition ("VR") enabled application services and related technologies from Voicenet's SPEECHware(tm) suite of architecture.
Rimpex is a voice technology and systems company which was recently acquired by Voicenet (Aust.), Ltd. ("VNA"), the majority owner of Voicenet. Under its agreement with VNA, Voicenet holds the exclusive rights to market voice technologies and products in North, Central and South America.
The first commercial offering, planned for Q3 of 2000, will be introduced to Telefonica customers drawn from the Chilean marketplace and will see the provision of VR-enabled email and voicemail functions. A progressive roll-out of VR technologies to Telefonica's operating platforms in Argentina, Brazil and Peru is planned as from Q4.
Rimpex expects that the revenue stream to flow from its voice portal presence in the Latin American market is anticipated to exceed US$1.0 billion over the next five years.
Telefonica, CTC, is a member of Telefonica International, which conducts business in Latin America on behalf of Telefonica S.A. - Spain's largest multinational and the leading global provider of telecom services to the Spanish/Portuguese speaking markets. Telefonica S.A. shares are traded on stock exchanges in Spain, London, Paris, Frankfurt and New York. Telefonica International operates in nine Latin American countries, managing over 18 million basic telephony lines and serving more than 5 million mobile clients and more than 2 million cable TV subscribers. The company plans a major expansion via its entry to the Spanish speaking market in the United States.
Rimpex enjoys a long-term relationship with Telefonica by virtue of the fact it has provided network integration and related services to the carrier and its predecessor for over 10 years. Rimpex has a team of highly skilled speech recognition and telecommunication engineers and operates an in-house telecommunications laboratory which undertakes work for such companies as Bell South, Ericsson, Williams, BTR and Entel. Rimpex currently has a staff of 125 employees.
ABOUT VOICENET:
Voicenet is a voice technology company that has developed speech based applications and a voice operating system ("VOS") 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 VOS architecture utilizes a best-of-breed structure employing licensed technology where appropriate from leaders in speech-to-text and text-to-speech software, including that developed by Voicenet's parent company's licensing and marketing partner, Lernout & Hauspie, the world's leading voice recognition software company.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT:
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.