Saudi Ericsson to exclusively market Sakhr's ALLO software in KSA

"Sakhr ALLO" is a state-of-the-art complete solution to voice-enable inbound and outbound telephone calls from any telephone device at any time. The software is based on the most advanced VAD (Voice Activated Dialing) systems.

By signing this agreement, Saudi Ericsson will be able to bundle Sakhr ALLO in some of their Ericsson PBX's (Public Branch Exchange) and other PBXs and to commence marketing this product as of the second half of May 2005.

"This agreement reflects Saudi Ericsson's keenness on providing exceptional services to its customers and its endeavors in maintaining its edge by placing the latest in global trends at the disposal of its customers in KSA," commented Salah Malaeb, General Manager, Sakhr. He added, "We are very pleased with this step which we feel reinforces our strategic alliance with one of the largest telecommunications technology companies in Saudi Arabia. It goes without saying that this agreement will launch a new phase of integrating Arabic technologies with the most sophisticated telecommunications platforms in the world."

"The Saudi market is a market of luxury, one that is accustomed to welcoming the latest technological advancements in the ICT field, and our company is committed to offering all things exceptional to the Saudi market," commented the managing director, Saudi Ericsson. He added, "We have chosen to offer our clients true added value by offering them the full Sakhr ALLO package - because it offers state-of-the-art technology, supports the Arabic language and is based on Sakhr's speech technologies which have proven themselves over and over again in many ways and in many places."

"Sakhr ALLO actually recognizes any voice in any Arabic dialect. It is flexible, scalable and simple to configure and to customize. Sakhr ALLO supports best of breed ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) and TTS (Text to Speech) technologies developed by Sakhr," said Jihad Salman, Group Product Manager for Speech in Sakhr, explaining Sakhr ALLO's features. He added, "Anyone using Ericsson PXB will not need to listen to a long menu of choices and sub-choices, and then use the telephone keypad to select the needed option - all the caller needs to do is vocally request the department, the name of the person or the service he wishes to be transferred to and the call will be automatically transferred."

The ALLO package combines two modules: the AlloAttendant is a speech-enabled auto-attendant for internal and inbound calls where callers simply say the desired person's name or the department's name, and the system automatically connects the call. While the AlloContact, is a Voice Activated Dialing (VAD) application for creating and managing a phone book, which enables users to place outbound calls by simply saying the name of whom they wish to speak to.

Saudi Ericsson has chosen to license both AlloAttendant and AlloContact together as one package - Sakhr ALLO - in order to provide its customers with the utmost benefits of the system.