-- Open Source Contribution Aimed at Simplifying Speech Application Development and Driving Wide-scale Adoption of Standards-based Voice Applications, Expanding Development Capabilities Available to Speech Community

OpenMethods, recognized innovator of voice application development software and integration services, today announced it is contributing substantial intellectual property to the Eclipse Voice Tools Project. The contribution of OpenMethods' openVXML graphical tooling suite will greatly serve and spur the advancement and availability of speech-enabled applications by making it easier, faster and more attractive for developers and business users to build voice applications and add speech capabilities in an intuitive and standardized way.

"This is the first step in OpenMethods' contribution to open source and to speech technology," said Tim Barnes, managing partner & co-founder, of OpenMethods. "By contributing customer-proven code to the voice application development community, our hope is that customers can now significantly reduce the effort dedicated to writing VoiceXML code and apply that same energy and focus on innovation and improvements to business processes at the application layer."

Broadening voice application development options for companies, OpenMethods is contributing two significant components of its openVXML application development suite in one tightly integrated environment. The application designer component provides an intuitive, graphical, "drag-and-drop" voice service creation environment. openVXML also includes innovative mechanisms for media resource and project management, along with a set of common dialog components that can be used to construct voice applications. The runtime service environment is a highly-efficient, server-side component that dynamically produces VoiceXML code, enabling complete back-end integration to enterprise systems (e.g. SCM, CRM, etc.), across a wide range of application server infrastructure choices. Developed for the Eclipse platform, the software is designed to empower non-technical business analysts to design, develop, test and deploy voice application services. Appealing to the technical community, it is ideally positioned to leverage existing and new plug-ins, application life-cycle management, build and compile facilities, and the Eclipse development environment to enhance the capabilities of enterprise voice applications.

Formed to take advantage of the Eclipse Web Tools Project, the Voice Tools Project is an effort that brings together companies and individuals from the voice industry to create a common set of standards-based, open source, voice-development tools. OpenMethods' contribution is a significant shift in the fundamental business model for the company and reflects its commitment to open standards, open source development and the Eclipse Voice Tools Project.

"OpenMethods' substantial and feature-rich contribution reinforces the legitimacy of standards-based, open source technologies and the Eclipse Voice Tools Project," said Brent Metz, Voice Tools Project Lead, IBM Software Group. "OpenMethods has taken great strides toward propelling innovation and capabilities to create a great experience for voice application development out of the box."

Widespread Speech Community Support:

Representing the single-largest donation ever to the Eclipse Voice Tools Project, OpenMethods' announcement has already garnered major industry support from OpenMethods customers, partners and many industry luminaries.

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.

"As the world's market-share leader of VoiceXML-based self-service portals, Genesys wants to accelerate business innovation by giving voice application developers more features and development options," said Wes Hayden, president and CEO of Genesys. "The advent of the Eclipse Voice Tools Project has been a driver for growth within the entire voice industry, and we look forward to working with Eclipse and OpenMethods to continue that momentum."

IBM

"Since innovation happens in many places, making OpenMethods' openVXML source code available can enable the enormous community of developers to bring their expertise and energy to improve and expand the reach of this full-featured developers environment," said Brian Garr, program director and segment manager, Contact Center Solutions, IBM Software Group. "For the speech industry to flourish and grow, it requires an ecosystem of developers to work together with open standards."

J. Markowitz Consultants

"Simplifying voice application development and providing easier access to intuitive development tools is critical to the growth of the overall speech market," said Judith Markowitz, president, J. Markowitz Consultants. "OpenMethods' contribution to the Eclipse Voice Tools Project offers an invaluable means and opportunity for enterprises to move beyond DTMF -- to develop innovative applications using speech."

Nuance Communications, Inc.

"Lowering the barriers to how companies develop innovative speech applications is especially meaningful for us," said Steve Chambers, president, Speech Division, Nuance. "We congratulate OpenMethods on their generous contribution to the Eclipse Voice Tools Project and we look forward to jointly fostering broad community acceptance and usage of our speech solutions."

Satellites Unlimited, Inc.

"Our decision to purchase OpenMethods' openVXML Studio and Management Suite was based on the cost savings we expected from openVXML Studio's rapid application development capabilities," said Tong Huang, director, information technology, Satellites Unlimited, Inc. "Specifically, we sought the added benefit of our existing IT resources being able to use the tool and Management Suite for the ongoing development and integration of our voice portal applications with existing CRM software. The OpenMethods solution has exceeded these expectations."

TMA Associates

"The Voice Tools Project lets companies and developers that use the popular Eclipse development environment expand into speech applications," said Bill Meisel, president, TMA Associates. "OpenMethods' contribution adds a high-level development tool to the mix, lowering the bar for companies that want to develop and manage speech applications internally."

VoiceXML Forum

"Open industry standards are critical to the success of the speech industry," said Ken Rehor, chair of the VoiceXML Forum. "VoiceXML has become the dominant standard in enabling speech interaction across a diverse set of applications, industries and end-users. The Forum applauds OpenMethods' decision to contribute its openVXML development suite to the Eclipse Voice Tools Project and looks forward to continuing its work alongside Eclipse and the W3C to promote VoiceXML as the technology standard essential to making Internet content and information accessible via voice and phone."

For more information on OpenMethods and openVXML Studio, including a comprehensive and detailed list of features and functionality, please visit www.openmethods.com.

About OpenMethods

OpenMethods is a market leader specializing in the provisioning and integration of multi-channel, self-service solutions for enterprise interaction management. Utilizing OpenMethods' unique integrated application development platform, companies can now write a single interface to voice-based communication channels to more easily manage and extend enterprise data models and business processes. The company is a member of the VoiceXML Forum and Eclipse Foundation and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.

About Eclipse

Eclipse is an award-winning, open source platform for the construction of powerful software development tools and rich desktop applications. Leveraging the Eclipse plug-in framework to integrate technology on the desktop saves technology providers time and money by enabling them to focus their efforts on delivering differentiation and value for their offerings. Eclipse is a multi-language, multi-platform, multi-vendor supported environment that is built by an open source community of developers and it is provided royalty-free by the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse is written in the Java language, includes extensive plug-in construction toolkits and examples, and can be extended and deployed on a range of desktop operating systems including Windows, Linux, QNX and Macintosh OS X. Full details on Eclipse and the Eclipse Foundation are available at www.eclipse.org.