GM Voices, Inc. Joins Microsoft Speech Partner Program to Capitalize on Growing Speech Market

GM Voices, Inc. to Provide High-Quality Voices to Work with Microsoft Speech Application Software Development Kit

Alpharetta, GA (PRWEB) October 30, 2003 - GM Voices, Inc. today announced its inclusion into the Microsoft Speech Partner Program, where it will work closely with Microsoft to develop professionally recorded voices for the Microsoft Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK). The SASDK Beta V3.0, also announced today, is designed to enable technology developers to deploy speech applications at a lower cost of entry. As a Microsoft Speech Program Partner, GM Voices will produce standard vocabularies as well as customized voice prompts that will provide a more professional sounding interface for the applications. Additionally, the professionally produced voice prompts will enable the applications marketed on the Microsoft Speech Server to increase caller task completion percentages, improve comprehension, boost error recovery flow and enhance customer satisfaction.

GM Voices, Inc. began producing 'studio quality voice messages' for telephone systems in 1985. Through the years the company has emerged as a global leader in persona creation and development in speech recognition and voice branding solutions for Fortune 5000 and communications companies. "We saw early on that companies needed help in presenting a crisp and professional image over the phone. As the lines between the telephone, computers and television has blurred, the need to present a consistent and effective image to customers is more important than ever. Speech Recognition has dramatically raised the level of quality required to create effective and sincere personas. Fortunately, we've always worked with theatrically trained voice actors who can give applications a believable and pleasant experience," said CEO Marcus Graham.

GM Voices has created a library of standard vocabulary voice prompts recorded by professional voice actors in its world class recording studios. The voice prompt libraries include greetings, menus, numbers, dates, navigation and error messages. "The 'off the shelf' libraries make it easy for software developers to make their speech applications sound great from the very start," added Graham. "When they're ready to add the customized voice prompts that any application requires, they just email the script to GM Voices to get them in the same voices found in the Microsoft SASDK.

Choice is very important today as well. That's why we're providing the 500+ voice prompt standard vocabularies in four voices- two female and two male voices. With several voice choices, the developer or end user customer can choose the persona that makes sense for their organization." Speech recognition is fast becoming a mainstream, pervasive technology that will be accessible by any device, at any time, and from any place, and the Microsoft SASDK and Speech Server, will help make speech widely available and affordable. This will present new opportunities for GM Voices, Inc. to provide enterprise-grade speech solutions to small and medium size businesses for a fraction of the normal investment. "The goal of the Microsoft Speech Partner Program is to provide enterprise customers with access to products and services from highly competent and skilled partners that have expertise in all areas required to successfully develop and support solutions based on the Microsoft Speech Server," said James Mastan, director of marketing for the Speech Technologies group at Microsoft Corp. "With the launch of this program, Microsoft is committed to bringing enterprises - through industry partners - the ability to deploy speech-enabled solutions and applications that deliver significant business value."

About GM Voices
GM Voices, Inc. Founded in 1985 by CEO Marcus Graham, GM Voices specializes in producing audio treatments for a variety of applications including telecommunications, speech recognition, multimedia and Internet web pages. With dozens of voice actors working remotely from studios around the world via ISDN lines and world-class voice over recording facilities in northern Atlanta studios, the company produces thousands of pre-recorded voice segments weekly.
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