Contract Win

RNS Number:4151R
Eckoh Technologies PLC
29 October 2003

For Immediate Release                                 Wednesday 29th Oct 2003

                             Eckoh Technologies Plc

Eckoh signs exclusive contract to provide hosted telephony services to Vodafone
                           Rapide corporate customers


* 1-year exclusive contract for any Vodafone Rapide 'Virtual Event' using
  Eckoh's speech recognition and IVR capabilities.


* Astra Zeneca, Barclays and Whitbread are already signed up for the
  Vodafone Rapide 'Virtual Event' service


Eckoh Technologies plc (Eckoh), Europe's largest speech application service
provider, today announces a 1-year exclusive contract with Wire-e, leading
developer of business software tools, for the provision of speech recognition
and IVR services to corporate customers of Vodafone's Rapide 'Virtual Event'.


Wire-e, who has an exclusive agreement to supply Vodafone with Rapide, wanted to
expand and enhance the range of services they can offer. They selected Eckoh as
their long-term partner because of the breadth of speech recognition and IVR
solutions that were available, the speed with which these could be deployed and
the size of the call-processing platform on which the applications were to be
hosted.


The Rapide service, which is designed for Vodafone business users on the move,
offers a suite of products which includes having a personal assistant managing
your contacts and numbers, sending emails that appear as if they were sent by
you, sending voice messages to groups of people and recording voice broadcasts
for others to dial into. Rapide is accessed by calling 1500 on a Vodafone mobile
and there are currently over 300 corporate customers who are signed up to the
service.


The first 'Virtual Event', which went live on October 15th with Astra Zeneca,
allows corporates to upload audio broadcasts remotely onto Eckoh's system and
then invite selected parties to access the broadcast by alerting them with an
SMS containing the access details. Other corporate customers including Barclays
and Whitbread have also signed up to use this service.


Nigel Shanahan, Managing Director of Wire-e said: "Vodafone Rapide is used by
many of the UK's largest companies who not only expect the product to be of the
highest quality and reliability but also continuing to innovate. This is why we
chose Eckoh, to provide us with market leading hosted solution capability and a
creative and responsive delivery team. In addition, with regulations tightening
on mobile use in cars, the ability to use speech recognition instead of the
phone keypad becomes vital going forward when designing services for business
users on the move, and Eckoh gives us the capability to deliver on this with
confidence."



Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer of Eckoh Technologies said: "We are very
happy to announce another important contract for Eckoh Speech Solutions with
this exclusive agreement with Wire-e. The Rapide service has to satisfy not only
the high technical standards of Vodafone but also the long list of FTSE 100
companies who utilise it, so we are very pleased to have been selected as the
exclusive supplier to this audience. The reaction from customers to the launch
of the 'Virtual Event' service has been extremely positive and we are very
excited about other product launches we have planned with Wire-e."


For further information, please contact:

Eckoh Technologies plc                                  Tel: [phone]
Martin Turner, Chief Executive Officer
Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer

Buchanan Communications                                 Tel: [phone]
Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia


Notes to Editors


About Eckoh Technologies

Eckoh Technologies plc designs, builds, hosts and manages Speech Solutions for
large corporations and organisations using ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition) and
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technologies. It is a leading UK service
provider and infrastructure owner/operator, and intends to exploit the
anticipated growth in demand for Speech Solutions across Europe.


In January 2003, Eckoh signed a landmark deal to create an exclusive speech
alliance with BT to provide hosted speech recognition solutions to their
corporate client base over the next 2 years. A two-year contract with TD
Waterhouse for a speech recognition share check service was announced by BT and
Eckoh in October 2003.


In June 2003 Eckoh enlarged its call processing infrastructure to 7,000 lines
(capable of handling 500,000 calls an hour) by installing another platform into
a BT hosting facility. This created the largest speech enabled call processing
platform in Europe.


Eckoh has secured contracts to supply hosted Speech Solutions to clients
including Virgin Mobile, Centrica, William Hill, Wyevale Garden Centres and the
RNIB.


Eckoh also operates the following businesses:

*  IVR - provides managed IVR and SMS services to media clients including
   GWR, Channel 4, Chrysalis, Endemol, EMAP, Johnston Press and Cartoon Network.
   Following the acquisition of Intelliplus plc in Sept 2003, Eckoh's IVR
   operation is one of the largest providers in the UK.

*  Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Freecom" brands, Eckoh
   supplies fixed line and mobile telephony services, broadband and data
   services to SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Following the acquisition of
   Intelliplus Network Services now has an SME customer base of over 13,000.


In the year to 31 March 2003, Eckoh generated turnover of #55.1m.


To hear a demonstration of Eckoh Technologies' speech recognition product range,
dial 08701 100 600. Further information can be found at www.eckoh.com.


                       This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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