One97 Communications and Nuance Communications join hands to deliver speech based applications

Making One97 a leader in voice applications and services in the country.

Mumbai, September 23, 2009: One97 Communications, India’s largest and most widely deployed telecom application platform and services Company today announced its association with Nuance Communications, a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions globally for businesses and consumers, to take speech based applications to the masses.

Automatic speech recognition based applications will enable both telecom operators and enterprises to establish a better connection with their customers by leveraging One97’s expertise. The new application will ensure product delivery for rural and semi-urban markets where users have not yet been able to achieve benefits of the value added services due to lower literacy levels and linguistic barriers.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Managing Director, One97 Communications said “Voice is the preferred application interface for Indian mobile consumers. As the voice application and platform leader, having Nuance’s speech skills will be a great asset for us to build compelling consumer experiences. Together we will be able to address the Indian consumers in not just 28 languages but also in thousands of dialects.”

He further added “Natural speech which was earlier restricted to high end application or users will now reach out to every mobile consumer and create a compelling value proposition to our operator and enterprise partners. One97 communications has always believed in delivering innovative product offerings to its customers, the association with Nuance is another step towards this commitment.”

Talking about this partnership Sunny Rao Managing Director, India and South East Asia, Nuance Communications said “We are very pleased to collaborate with One97 to deliver a voice enabled application to improve services to customers in one of the world’s largest mobile markets. The new application based on our proven speech recognition technology will enable customers to access services in a far more user friendly manner with more freedom of choice. Nuance wants to enable rural consumers to overcome low literacy levels and access value added services. Our partnership with One97 is an important step in that direction”

With this partnership the One97 Communications platform, which currently supports 28 Indian regional languages, will get the boost to support numerous dialects too. The new applications which One97 plans to deploy will provide the company a tremendous opportunity to tap into the unexplored semi-urban and rural markets which are the future growth drivers. The new speech based applications on the One97 Communications platform will offer a whole host of speech based niche and mass services which will be the first of their kind.

Key services

- Content Search, navigation and quick downloads
- User profile based Flexible and Customizable Applications.
- Discovery of more than 80,000 songs to Ring Back Tone customers across operators
- Easy and compelling services on mCommerce and Location based service (LBS) platforms.

One97’s compelling self care platform offers lower cost of servicing customers and will enable telecom operators to handle a higher number of calls with more types of queries being addressed.The new application, just one of many planned, is expected to be disruptive for the industry as it is neither a traditional customer care application nor is the customer required to pay for accessing the service. This speech application service will enable service providers to reach out to a wider audience including rural customers.

Speech based applications and services will help telecom carriers to get more customers to explore and use their (new) services and also reduce call drops while accessing services. These applications can be customised as per the user profile and activity depending upon the lifecycle stage. This will offer Telecom Operators a huge advantage to make offers to their customers based on their preferences, through a process whereby customers dial a number and simply state what they are looking for. For those who cannot read or write – the speech based option is optimal.

One97’s VIO (very intelligent outdial), which is the country’s primary method for song download, will also soon be able to offer speech enabled search and discovery of more than 80000 songs as opposed to the current 5 to 7 songs available per menu. This will further enhance the long tail music content that can now be searched and consumed.

With applications like speech authentication and speech based search, M Commerce and Location Based Services will also become more easily accessible to all, providing a better user experience

About One97 Communications

One97 is India leading telecom application services provider with the most widely deployed applications platform reaching 100% mobile users in India. Every month over 250 million unique telecom subscribers perform over 2.5 billion transactions on this platform. Collaborating closely with telecom operators One97 works for enhancing their revenues and profitability. One97’s offerings include content, communication and community applications to consumers and enterprises. Headquartered in New Delhi and funded by Intel Capital, SAIF Partners and SVB One97 thrives on disruptive innovation in telecom application space. More information on One97 is available on www.one97world.com

About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com

For media Queries Contact

Farheen Akhtar

One97 Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Farheen.akhtar {at} one97(.)net