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Erin Collopy Emily Swanson
General Magic TSI Communications
1 + 408 774 4225 1 + 650 635 0200 xt. 206
[email protected] [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ASK JEEVES SELECTS GENERAL MAGIC TO BUILD
INTERFACE FOR VOICE ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
Companies Join Forces to Provide Fortune 1000 Corporations With
Personality-Rich, Voice-Enabled, Relevant Answers
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (November 6, 2000) - General Magic, Inc. (Nasdaq:
GMGC), a premier voice application service provider, today announced it will
build the voice user interface and provide hosting for the first conversational,
natural language voice applications for corporations with Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq:
ASKJ) and Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN).
This intuitive interface, based on General Magic's magicTalk(TM) voice
platform, will seamlessly integrate Ask Jeeves' natural language e-commerce and
e-support services with Nuance's speech recognition technologies. In addition,
General Magic and Ask Jeeves will co-market and sell their voice applications
and services to Fortune 1000 corporations including telecommunication carriers,
retailing, financial services and voice portals worldwide.
"This is a milestone win for General Magic with major technology
players in natural language and speech recognition," observed Mark Plakias, vice
president of voice & wireless commerce at The Kelsey Group. "It is exciting
because it is a meeting of three companies with a shared vision of natural
language interfaces for handling problems in a conversational manner. This is an
important step on the road to liberation from traditional models of PCs,
browsers, and search engines."
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The joint solution will lend a voice to Ask Jeeves Business Solutions
that currently serve more than 125 corporate customers, allowing access to
accurate and relevant information about a company's products and services via
telephone. Customers can get quick answers via a telephone or cellular phone
instead of relying on a computer to access the Internet or spend long amounts of
time on hold waiting for an "available" operator. Leveraging General Magic's
expertise in building personality-rich voice user interfaces, companies will
also be able to match their visual brand with an auditory brand. General Magic
will host these business solutions in their 24/7 Network Operations Center,
allowing businesses a faster time to market.
Increasingly, businesses are adding Ask Jeeves' question answering
services to their Customer Relationships Management (CRM) solutions package.
This combination of General Magic's well-designed, personality-rich and natural
voice interfaces with Ask Jeeves' suite of business services will create a
powerful solution, helping businesses gain a competitive advantage by making
important information available through conversational, voice-enabled systems.
The new applications would allow businesses to offer their CRM services via
voice to the more than 125 million consumers who already have access to cell or
LAN phones.
"This relationship further validates General Magic's position as a
technology innovator and leader in developing and hosting voice applications,"
said Steve Markman, chairman, chief executive officer and president of General
Magic. "We are pleased to be able to integrate our award-winning solutions with
Ask Jeeves' respected natural language technology and widely recognized brand,
as well as Nuance's leading speech technologies to help businesses worldwide
offer more complete solutions to their staffs, customers and partners."
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"Telephones are the most well-established customer support tool to
date, but the existing phone tree systems and stale voice prompts leave much to
be desired," said Rob Wrubel, CEO of Ask Jeeves. "On the Web, Ask Jeeves enables
corporations to provide humanized, natural language customer support that
frequently surpasses the automated, telephone experience - quickly connecting
customers with the information they need. Our relationship with General Magic
helps us recreate the Jeeves experience over the phone, lending a personalized,
branded experience to voice-driven customer service."
ABOUT GENERAL MAGIC
General Magic is a voice application service provider dedicated to delivering
customized voice applications, hosting, and professional services to leading
telecommunications, enterprise and Internet companies. With its award-winning
VoiceXML-based magicTalk communications platform and years of experience,
General Magic offers the premier voice user interface that combines language,
personality, and logic, creating a natural conversation between people and
information. General Magic creates value for its customers by building voice
solutions that strengthen customer relations, deliver value-added services, and
provide access to content anytime, anywhere. General Magic is headquartered in
Sunnyvale. For additional information about General Magic, visit the company's
web site at http://www.generalmagic.com.
ABOUT ASK JEEVES, INC.
Ask Jeeves is a leading provider of intuitive, intelligent Web interaction
solutions to deliver a humanized online experience. Ask Jeeves' solutions enable
companies to convert online shoppers to buyers, reduce support costs, understand
customer preferences and improve customer retention. Ask Jeeves also syndicates
its solutions to portals, infomediaries, and content and destination sites to
help companies increase e-commerce and advertising revenue. Ask Jeeves deploys
its solutions on Ask Jeeves at Ask.com, Ask Jeeves for Kids at AJKids.com and
DirectHit.com, to help companies target and acquire qualified prospects online
and to provide consumers with real-time access to information, products and
services. For more information, visit http://www.ask.com or call 510-985-7400.
ABOUT NUANCE
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Nuance develops, markets and supports a voice interface software platform that
makes the information and services of enterprises, telecommunications networks
and the Internet accessible from any telephone. Every day, millions of people
interact with Nuance systems at blue-chip companies like American Airlines,
Charles Schwab, The Home Shopping Network, Lloyds TSB, Sears and United Parcel
Service. Nuance is also driving the creation of the Voice Web and delivering
software for V-Commerce(TM) (voice-enabled e-commerce) services and
applications. Nuance is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., with global sales
offices and partners supporting solutions in multiple languages around the
world. For more information about Nuance, visit www.nuance.com or call
888-NUANCE-8.
# # #
General Magic notes that the forward-looking statements in this press release
involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause
industry trends, or actual results, performance or achievement to be materially
different from any future trends, results, performance or achievements expressed
or implied by these statements. These include, among others, risks and
uncertainties concerning the adequacy of the Company's financial resources to
execute its business plan; market acceptance of the Company's technologies and
services; the Company's ability to attract, retain and motivate key technical,
marketing and management personnel; the ability of the Company to establish and
maintain relationships with businesses that have high volume customer
interactions, and to establish alliances with companies that offer technology
solutions for such businesses; the challenges inherent in the development,
delivery and implementation of complex technologies; the ability of the
Company's third party technology partners to timely develop, license or support
technology necessary to the Company's services; and the Company's ability to
respond to competitive developments. These and other risks and uncertainties are
detailed in General Magic's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission on August 14, 2000.
General Magic and magicTalk are trademarks of General Magic, Inc., which may be
registered in some jurisdictions.
Ask Jeeves is a registered trademark of Ask Jeeves, Inc. Ask Jeeves for Kids,
the "Ask" button, Jeeves Relevant Answers, Jeeves Popularity Search, Jeeves
Related Search, Jeeves Text Sponsorship, Jeeves Advisor, Jeeves Insight, Jeeves
Live and Ask.com are service marks of Ask Jeeves, Inc.
Nuance and V-Commerce are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance
Communications, Inc.
Other trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
