VOCALIS ANNOUNCES ITS INTENTION TO FLOAT ON THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE

Vocalis Group plc ('Vocalis') announces that it intends to seek a listing via a placing on the London Stock Exchange. Albert E Sharp has been appointed sponsor and broker to Vocalis for its flotation. The funds raised in the placing will be principally used to expand sales and marketing activities.

Vocalis is a speech recognition and call processing specialist that uses its proprietary technology in a range of voice control products. These can respond to a range of speakers with different accents without the prior need to programme the system to recognise a voice or accent.

History of Vocalis

Vocalis was formed in May 1993 following a management buy-out from Logica of its Speech and Natural Language Division. The management buy-out team was led by Jeremy Peckham, Vocalis’ Managing Director, and 12 employees from Logica including Dr Minesh Patel, Operations Director, and Dr Trevor Thomas, Chief Scientist, all of whom invested in the buy-out.

The Business

Vocalis has two broad groups of products: standard and customised. The first is a range of standard products, Operetta and SPEECHtel, which are supplied directly to customers and indirectly through OEMs, distributors and value added resellers. The second group comprises platforms for delivering customised products, tailored in each case for particular customers or OEMs. In addition the Group will market its ‘speech recognition’ software technology under the brand name Vocalis SpeechWare to carefully selected technology partners.

Standard Products

Operetta

Operetta is a system which handles incoming telephone calls. It will answer the telephone and callers can reach the person they want to speak to by naming the person they wish to contact. The system will recognise the name of the person or department being called and put that call through. The system will inform the person being called of the name of the caller thereby allowing that person either to accept the call, filter it to voice mail or redirect the call to another person.

SPEECHtel

SPEECHtel is a system which allows telephone users to dial from a fixed or mobile telephone simply by speaking the number or a pre-programmed name. The system resides in the telephone network and enables telephone companies to provide a voice dialling service to their subscribers.

Customised Products

Vocalis has designed two platforms: the Business Application Platform targeted at businesses and the Network Service Platform targeted at telephone network operators. These products are designed to provide customised voice control services such as telephone banking and directory enquiries.

Business Application Platform

The Business Application Platform allows a company to handle routine telephone enquiries in an automated fashion. Vocalis has sold systems to British Airways to automate public flight enquiries and staff travel booking, Abbey National for telephone banking and Scottish Mutual for a help desk.

Network Services Platform

The Network Services Platform may be adapted to allow telephone companies to provide value added service to their customers and to automate routine operator tasks, which are based around the call centre. Vocalis has provided a system to Telia (the Swedish telephone company) through Logica, one of Vocalis's value added resellers for automating directory enquiries.

Management

Roy Cotterill, Non-Executive Chairman

Roy Cotterill joined the Board of Vocalis in June 1994. He is currently Chairman of Electrocomponents plc, Chairman of the TriTec Trust plc and Deputy Chairman of the Division Group plc.

Jeremy Peckham, Managing Director

Jeremy Peckham established and managed the Speech and Natural Language division of Logica for 5 years where he had overall responsibility for its financial and commercial management, technical direction and sales and marketing. He began his work in speech recognition over 18 years ago at the Royal Aerospace Establishment, Farnborough.

Jane Crathern, Finance Director and Company Secretary

Jane Crathern was appointed Finance Director in August 1995. She has many years of experience in senior financial positions within Unilever plc, BASF Limited and GEC plc.

Dr Minesh Patel, Operations Director

Minesh Patel worked at Logica for eight years where he gained considerable experience in the Dialogic analogue and digital telephony interfaces which are now used in the Vocalis platforms, as well as porting speech recognition and verification techniques into both Transputer and Digital Signal processing environments.

Dr Hermann Hauser, Non-Executive Director

Hermann Hauser joined the Board of Vocalis at the time of the management buy-out in May 1993. He was one of the founders of Acorn Computer Group in 1978. He is currently chairman of Advanced Telecommunications Modulesa Limited, SynGenix Limited and ESI Limited and is a Non-Executive Director of VISION Group Limited.

Dr Robert Hook, Non-Executive Director

Robert Hook joined the Board of Vocalis at the time of the management buy-out in May 1993. He has been involved in the founding of several high technology companies including Xaar Limited of which he is Chairman and Peptide Therapeutics Group plc where he was a Non-Executive Director until its recent admission to the Official List of the London Stock Exchange.

Vocalis intends to announce up to two further non executive Board appointments in the future.

NB: This document has been approved under Section 57 of the Financial Services Act by Albert E Sharp, a member of the Securities and Futures Authority Limited, as financial adviser to Vocalis Group plc in connection with the flotation of the company.