Vocalis Group PLC - Re Contract

RNS Number:1325L
Vocalis Group PLC
24 May 2000

                  Vocalis Group plc announces contract with              
                         World Online of South Africa                         


Vocalis, the international speech technologies group, has signed its first
contract in South Africa.  The contract is with Internet Service Provider
(ISP) World Online, which will offer the Vocalis SpeechMail system to its
100,000 subscribers across the whole of South Africa. 

SpeechMail, developed by Vocalis, allows email users to access their emails
over the telephone, using a combination of Advanced Speech Recognition and
text-to-speech technologies. SpeechMail is already widely used by many leading
ISPs, including BT Internet, Cable & Wireless and Freeserve.

"We are pleased to have signed this contract with World Online, which has a
major presence in the developing South African Internet market," said Charles
Halle, Chief Executive of Vocalis. "We see great potential in this region, and
are delighted to have World Online as a partner in this fast growing market." 

"Giving our customers the facilities of SpeechMail is an important addition to
our product offering," said Francois Swart, Manager of New Product
Development, for World Online. 

"We aim to provide a comprehensive range of Internet-related services, and it
is clear that many people want to have access to their emails while they are
travelling, or away from their PCs. SpeechMail has proved itself to be a well
designed, robust, speech-based application that enables them to do precisely
that." 

For further information:       
Philippa Buttle
Vocalis Group plc
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]       

Victoria Springett/Tom Moriarty
ICIS
Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]

About Vocalis

Vocalis, as a leading speech technology Group, builds a range of voice
activated telephony products for customers around the world. Vocalis was
formed in 1993 and has been trading on the London Stock Exchange since July
1996. 

The Vocalis technology areas include: -

Vocalis' Internet Product range allows access to information on the Internet
by simply picking up the telephone and hearing the information. SpeecHTML
allows companies to offer a telephone number which people can call to access
the information on the Website, which they can then interact with using spoken
commands. SpeechMail enables people to call and access their e-mail messages,
they can hear them, reply and delete them using simple spoken commands.  The
Websites are http://www.speechtml.com and http://www.vocalisspeechmail.com.

SpeechWare, Vocalis' proprietary third generation advanced speech recognition
technology, which is available to purchase under license. This is fully
supported with toolkits and is available in most of the languages across the
globe.  The Website is http://www.vocalisspeechware.com 

Vocalis' Internet Product range allows access to information on the Internet
by simply picking up the telephone and hearing the information. SpeecHTML
allows companies to offer a telephone number which people can call to access
the information on the Website, which they can then interact with using spoken
commands. SpeechMail enables people to call and access their e-mail messages,
they can hear them, reply and delete them using simple spoken commands.  The
Websites are http://www.speechtml.com and http://www.vocalisspeechmail.com.

SPEECHtel is a platform with voice activated service applications for fixed
and mobile telephone operators around the world. These include both operator
services and value added services, such as directory assistance, unified
messaging and voice dialling.
The Website is http://www.speechtel.com 

The Vocalis Website is at http://www.vocalis.com.

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