Motorola, Lexicus Division to License Family of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Technologies
PALO ALTO, Calif. and BURLINGTON, Mass. — March 12, 1998 — L&H's ASR, TTS and Speech Compression Licensed; Agreement Strengthens Motorola's Global Product Offerings with Speech Enabled User Interface Software
Motorola, Lexicus Division (NYSE:MOT) and Lernout & Hauspie (NASDAQ:LHSPF)(EASDAQ:LHSP.ED) announced today that they entered into a broad licensing agreement. Motorola, Lexicus Division will license L&H's complete family of automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS) and speech and music compression technologies (SMC) to supplement Lexicus' existing collection of handwriting and speech technologies. "This agreement allows Motorola, Lexicus Division to deploy all of L&H's ASR, TTS and SMC technologies in their product development. The alliance will drive the adoption of L&H's advanced speech technologies in fast-growing markets, in which Motorola and Lexicus are worldwide leaders," said Gaston Bastiaens, President and CEO of L&H.
"We believe this will be a long-lasting, productive relationship for all parties involved." The agreement with L&H enables Motorola, via its Lexicus division, to offer a wide range of the advanced user interface technologies which could be used for many applications. "L&H's broad range of speech technologies in multiple languages offers Lexicus the opportunity to enhance its existing portfolio of handwriting and speech technologies and to offer better solutions worldwide to our customers." said Dr. Ronjon Nag, Vice President and General Manager of Motorola, Lexicus Division. "Our relationship with L&H enables Motorola and its Lexicus division to access a full range of advanced user interface technologies requested for the next generation of Motorola's global offerings," he added.
Products Licensed to Motorola, Lexicus Division
Under the terms of the agreement, L&H has agreed to license its family of speech technologies to Lexicus. These technologies enable electronic equipment to:
— Recognize natural and fluently spoken words, continuous digits, isolated words, keywords and the alphabet in multiple languages, a technology known as automated speech recognition (ASR) — Convert any computer readable text into natural-sounding speech based on in-depth linguistic understanding in multiple languages, a technology called text-to-speech (TTS); — Significantly reduce the size of voice and audio files for transmissions and storage while maintaining high quality, known as speech and music coding (SMC).
L&H's family of ASR products includes the ASR 200, a small-vocabulary recognizer for use in automotive and consumer electronics applications, and the ASR 1500 and ASR 1600 engines, phonetic speaker independent recognizers designed for embedded computer, multimedia and telecommunications applications.
Motorola, Lexicus Division (http://www.mot.com/lexicus)
Motorola, Lexicus Division is one of the world's leading providers of handwriting and speech recognition software for desktop, mobile and embedded systems. Its products include cursive and print recognizers for English and Chinese, and noise-robust DSP-based speech recognition subsystems. Motorola is one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications, semiconductors, and advanced electronic systems and services. Motorola's 1997 sales were $ 28.9 billion.
About Lernout & Hauspie
Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is an international leader in the development of technologies that provide the speech user interface (SUI) and language user interface (LUI) for a wide variety of third-party applications and end-user products. L&H's four core technologies — automatic speech recognition (ASR), text- to-speech (TTS), text-to-text (translation) and digital speech compression — are licensed to some of the world's best-known companies in the telecommunications, computers and multimedia, consumer electronics and automotive electronics industries. Its end-user offerings include command and control software for general consumers and dictation software for consumer, medical and legal markets. Its human and machine translation services, including an Internet translation service, provide localization and globalization to companies worldwide.
Forward-looking statement
This Press Release contains forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the broad partnership between Motorola and/or Lexicus and L&H. There can be no assurance that this partnership will strengthen L&H's position in the automotive and telecommunications market; that Motorola will manufacture, develop, and market any product including L&H's technologies; that Motorola products incorporating L&H's technology will be successful. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this Press release. L&H expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Lernout & Hauspie can be found on the World Wide Web at www.lhs.com. All product names and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of L&H, Microsoft and their respective subsidiaries.
CONTACT:
Lernout & Hauspie
Audrey Pobre, 781/203-5341 (Editors)
[email protected]
Ellen Spooren, 781/203-5344 (Investors)
[email protected]
or
Motorola, Lexicus Division (Editors)
Robin Jones, 650/858-6159
[email protected]