MRCP Standards-Based Access to Popular Speech Resources Cuts Costs, Eliminates Speech Development's Biggest Barriers

September 27, 2004

NMS Communications (NASDAQ: NMSS), the leading provider of technologies and solutions for enhanced services and efficient networks, today announced that Loquendo's Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) software based on the popular Media Resource Control Protocol (MRCP) 1.0 protocol has been certified by NMS as compliant with the NMS Universal Speech Access interface. The NMS interface is the only enabling technology product currently available for MRCP 1.0, which is widely endorsed as a de facto standard by today's major speech engine vendors. NMS' Universal Speech Access provides developers with a common application programming interface (API) offering standards-based access to today's most in-demand speech resources. Loquendo's NMS certification, as a result, means that development issues caused by traditional proprietary interfaces are eliminated, resulting in simpler integration, significantly lower lifecycle costs, and quicker time-to-market for application developers.
NMS and Loquendo have cooperated on delivering conventional 'audio provider' interfaces in the past. With NMS' Universal Speech Access, Loquendo has now added MRCP support for its prominent Loquendo ASR engine, and will shortly provide MRCP support for the Loquendo TTS engine, both of which will continue to drive Loquendo's leadership in the fast-growing speech applications space.

Part of NMS' Open Access™ family of products, Universal Speech Access helps alleviate one of the major development challenges inherent in writing speech applications - the difficulty using multiple types of speech resources efficiently. With Universal Speech Access, developers are able to write applications once, under a common API, and then access any speech resource supporting the MRCP standard. Additional resources, even from other vendors, can be used with minimal adjustments and no specific dependence on operating systems, versions, or other components - saving valuable time and money.

NMS demonstrated Universal Speech Access at the recent SpeechTek trade show in New York, where it was evident that application developers are continuing to add automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), and other speech capabilities to their products at a rapid pace.

"Until now, speech applications developers have faced challenges when using proprietary 'audio providers' traditionally built by speech vendors for exclusive use with their products, which created difficulty for application developers wanting to use speech resources, such as ASR and TTS from different providers," said Marco Romagnoli, CEO, Loquendo. "With widespread adoption of MRCP, developers have a common set of APIs to which they can write, and while all the leading speech vendors support MRCP, NMS is the first communications building block supplier that supports MRCP-based speech with the NMS Universal Speech Access product. We are proud to be the first NMS-certified speech development platform."

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 16 languages and 35 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.

About NMS Communications
NMS Communications (NASDAQ: NMSS) is a leading provider of communications technologies and solutions, enabling new enhanced services and efficient networks that help our customers grow their revenues and profits.

For more information, visit www.nmscommunications.com.