Aculab, a leading provider of enabling technology for the communications market, and Loquendo, a global speech technology company, announced today that Loquendo's Speech Technologies software is compliant with the Aculab MRCP (Media Resource Control Protocol) client interface, for use with Aculab's Prosody Media Processing Resources.

Loquendo has been the first to implement the advanced MRCPv2 standard, which is supported by Aculab's speech enabling interface. MRCPv2 utilises SIP, rather than RTSP, to control speech resources, as well as supporting additional functionality, including speaker verification and identification, record and grammar enrolment. Both Aculab and Loquendo interfaces also include the option of using MRCPv1.

Aculab's Prosody cards provide developers with a common application programming interface (API), offering standards-based access to today's most in demand speech resources. Loquendo's Aculab certification, therefore, means that most of the development efforts necessitated by traditional proprietary interfaces are eliminated, resulting in simpler integration, significantly lower lifecycle costs, and quicker time-to-market for application developers.

Aculab's Prosody range helps alleviate one of the major developmental challenges inherent in writing speech applications - the challenge of making efficient use of various speech resources that come in a variety of formats. With the entire Prosody range, developers are able to write applications just once, under a common API, and then access any speech resource supporting the MRCP standard. Additional resources, even those from other vendors, can be used with minimal adjustments and no specific dependence on operating systems, versions, or other components exists - saving valuable time and money.

Loquendo MRCP Server 7.0's full support of the most common standards for technology integration, combined with the full compliance of Loquendo TTS, ASR, and Speaker Verification technologies with SGRS (either XML or ABNF), SISR 1.0 and SSML 1.0, removes any legacy from customer investments, while making technology integration far less labour intensive.

"Loquendo was the first speech-engine vendor to implement the MRCPv2 interface, because we strongly believe in standards" - said Daniele Sereno, VP Product Engineering at Loquendo "MRCP enables integrators to deliver total caller satisfaction, while significantly cutting costs and protecting investment. By drawing on the very latest open standards, such as MRCPv2, Loquendo is in a position to deliver the best core speech technology, enabling our partners to create very high quality self-service telephony applications, for any domain."

Speaking about the development of Aculab's MRCP client, Chris Gravett, Sales and Marketing Director said, ''Aculab's MRCP client means that our customers can readily combine Aculab technology with products from leading speech vendors, such as Loquendo, to build cost effective, standards based solutions.''

About Aculab
Aculab enables developers and systems integrators to produce a variety of high performance communications solutions. Aculab's portfolio offers an exceptional mix of capabilities that are easy to integrate and bring real value - reduced costs, increased customer satisfaction and competitive advantage. A complete range of open standards building block technologies for use within telco or enterprise environments, as well as essential support services, are offered. Products include media resources, digital network access, VoIP, fax, speech processing and conferencing. Support is available to help developers through each stage of their product's life cycle including pre-sales consultancy, technical support, training and marketing.

Aculab's head office is located in Milton Keynes, UK with offices in the USA, Germany and Australia. For more information visit www.aculab.com.

About Loquendo - Vocal Technology and Services
With over 30 years of R&D expertise, Loquendo is at the forefront of the global speech technologies market. Its high-quality, high-performance technologies (Loquendo TTS - text to speech, Loquendo ASR - automatic speech recognition, Loquendo Speech Server, Loquendo Speaker Verification) and platforms guarantee systems integrators the best solutions in 17 languages and 39 voices - with more coming soon.

From its headquarters in Turin, Italy, Loquendo deploys technologies that power millions of calls every day in the telecommunications and enterprise markets throughout the world.

For more information, visit www.loquendo.com.