AETHRA FOR NESPOLE!

NESPOLE! is the innovative international project aimed at overcoming language barriers in e-commerce.

For Immediate Release

AETHRA FOR NESPOLE!

The new innovative project from Aethra dedicated to e-commerce

Ancona, Italy, 12 June 2002 – The Italian telecommunications company Aethra, one of the main players on the international telecommunications scene, presents NESPOLE!: NEgotiating through SPOken Language in E-commerce. Financed 50% by the European Community and involving participants from all over the world, the aim of this innovative project is to overcome language barriers in e-commerce and e-service.

A total of six members have taken part in this exciting initiative, three of which prestigious Universities: Karlsruhe in Germany, the Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and the Joseph Fourier in France. In addition, there are three Italian members: the Trentino Institute of Culture, ITC-IRST, the organisation promoting tourism in Trentino and Aethra Telecommunications. The collective aim was to bring to life a one-of-a-kind system, giving everyone the opportunity to make purchases on-line easily, at only the cost of connecting to the Internet.

Aethra Telecommunications, the only company taking part in this international initiative, has been able to provide an invaluable input in the development of the software, thanks to its thirty years experience in the telecommunications market and the strength of its internal R&D department. The software developed by Aethra ensures high quality sound and images and is compliant with the H.323 standard. Aethra chose to participate in this project due to the increasing importance of e" business.

Analysts across the globe agree on the growing importance of the e-commerce market and an increasing trend can be registered worldwide for the current year. According to Frost &Sullivan, the global value of e-commerce could reach about US$ 25 billion in 2006. In the US, retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2001 were US$ 10.043 billion, an increase of 34.4 percent (+/-2,1%) from the third quarter of 2001 and an increase of 13.1 percent (+/-4.1%) from the fourth quarter of 2000.

According to a recent study by the Gartner Group, e-commerce in Europe has experienced a growth of 50% and now constitutes around 2% of all purchases. Forecasts indicate that interest in this new kind of commerce is destined to grow and analysts predict that business volume will reach 97,8 billion euros; a 48% increase on 2001. With the emergence of e-commerce, a new market that represents an important slice of world business has opened up. As a result, projects aimed at simplifying the use of e-commerce, such as NESPOLE!, have considerable scope for development and will ease the way for a rapid diffusion of e" business.

The system architecture is sturdy, portable and can be enlarged or scaled down ensuring that it is suitable for every kind of environment. Translating concepts rather than single words and studying the translation of verbal and unwritten expressions has allowed the development of a sophisticated but easy-to-use system. At the same time NESPOLE! uses simple architecture. Only a PC with NetMeeting and an audio card are necessary to make use of the simultaneous translating service, allowing requests to be made and all the necessary information to be received in one of four languages.

The languages currently available are French, German, English and Italian but the system was designed to be easily extended to include other languages, even more complex ones such as Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. In fact, interest has already been shown by institutions requiring the extension of the system into the oriental languages.

We joined this initiative immediately – declares Giulio Viezzoli, CEO of Aethra Telecommunications – because we believe in the project and its aims. Making a small contribution to the unification of nations and putting our experience and knowledge at the disposal of new forms of commercial relations – concludes Viezzoli – was a challenge we had to meet."

The future implications of this project are various. Thanks to its simple and flexible architecture the system can be used for a wide range of applications. At the moment the software has only been developed for the tourism sector, however work will begin shortly to provide the same service for the medical sector.

Aethra
Aethra occupies a leading position in the telecommunications market around the world: it has installed over 110,000 videoconferencing systems and sells its products through more than 40 telephone companies worldwide. The company develops, manufactures and markets a wide product range in the telecommunications sector: from ISDN and xDSL products, videocommunication systems and audioconferencing solutions to the management of audio, video and data services. This wide range has always distinguished Aethra in the telecommunications industry worldwide, reflecting its capacity to develop cutting-edge technologies. Aethra's 30 years' experience and its success in this market have resulted in the company's international presence in over 60 countries.
For further information: www.aethra.com
   

Press contact:

Francesca Galeazzi     Jenny Flack
Communications &        Communications &
Corporate Relations     Corporate Relations

Tel: +39 071 2189742   Tel: +39 071 2189 742
Fax: +39 071 887077   Fax: +39 071 887077
francesca.galeazzi@aethra.it   j.flack@aethra.it