Vocalis and Integra Launch the Leading Speech Technologies into South Africa

Vocalis, the international speech technology Group, and Integra Systems, a South African Telecommunications Software company, announced today that they have signed a distribution agreement, which will enable Integra to offer the full Vocalis product range into the African market. Under this agreement Vocalis has sold to Integra a demonstration system sale worth £250,000 (SA R 2,425,000) and all revenue generated will be split between the two companies.

Integra will be responsible for marketing and supporting the full Vocalis product range which includes:-

	Vocalis SpeechWare - our proprietary Advanced Speech Recognition technology available for licencing
	SPEECHtel - Platform and applications for telephone network operators to automate operator services and value add services
	SpeecHTML - Allows access to Websites via a telephone and spoken commands
	SpeechMail - Enables users to access e-mails over the telephone using simple commands for "play", "reply", "delete" and "next message"

Integra will run a pilot for both the SpeecHTML and SpeechMail services in November this year and the full service launch is expected early in the New Year. Customers who subscribe to these services will have greater flexibility and access to information that to date has been exclusive to Internet users. All Vocalis products will be marketed through Integra’s existing channels to market, as well as new channels that will be established as a result of these new products.

Jennifer Cherry, Managing Director for Integra, explains "Integra is always looking for new and innovative products to introduce to the African market. The Vocalis product range definitely fits this description and we are delighted to be able to offer them complementary to the rest of our product range. The Internet industry is really starting to take off here but the telephone is still the primary source of communication so the timing for these new products is perfect."

Mike Williams, Business Development Director for Vocalis, adds "Vocalis already operates on a worldwide basis and this further enhances our global presence. The background and experience of Integra in the telecommunications and software markets make them a natural choice to market our products in this region. We look forward to a successful partnership given the encouraging signs in the South African and greater African market place."