PISCATAWAY, N.J., Oct. 8, 2002 — The VoiceXML Forum will sponsor a Users Group Meeting (UGM) on 31 October 2002 at the 8th Annual SpeechTEK International Expo and Educational Conference in New York City that will provide an interactive forum to share and discuss critical information related to VoiceXML applications and implementations. The meeting will take place between noon and 5:30 pm. Registration for the UGM is available via the web at: www.voicexml.org.

Top industry experts from the VoiceXML Forum will lead five 45-minute discussions on topics such as VoiceXML conformance and interoperability, VoiceXML design and implementation, SSML and CCXML. The sessions will run sequentially to allow attendees the opportunity to attend and provide input into each session. All sessions will feature an open question and answer segment.

"It’s an incredible experience to be part of the explosive growth of VoiceXML," said Bill Dykas, Chairman of the VoiceXML Forum and Pervasive Computing Segment Manager at IBM. "The demand for information about VoiceXML is demonstrated by the expanding attendance at the VoiceXML Forum’s Users Group Meetings in the past few years. The increasing demand is causing the Forum to now sponsor Users Group events throughout the year. In 2001 it was one event, in 2002 we led two meetings. Going forward our plans are to sponsor multiple, geographically dispersed events to serve the interests of the VoiceXML community."

The October gathering will mark the Forum’s fourth Users Group Meeting. Previous meetings have been attended by as many as 230 people, and have spawned geographic sub efforts such as the VoiceXML Forum’s Boston Users Group. SpeechTEK provides an ideal backdrop for a UGM, as it is renowned as the world’s premier event dedicated exclusively to speech products, applications and solutions.

About the VoiceXML Forum

The VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization that formed to create and promote the Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML). With the backing and contributions of its diverse membership, including key industry leaders, since its inception the VoiceXML Forum has successfully driven market acceptance of VoiceXML through a wide array of speech-enabled applications. Currently the Forum has more than 380 member companies, distributed across three membership categories (Sponsor, Promoter and Supporter). Membership in the Forum is open to any interested company.

The core activities of the VoiceXML Forum are driven by its four active committees: Education, Marketing, Tools and Conformance. The Forum publishes VoiceXML Review (http://www.voicexmlreview.org), an electronic magazine dedicated to VoiceXML, featuring insightful articles written by industry experts. Its public website (www.voicexml.org) is a rich, one-stop source for information about VoiceXML and related technologies. The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO).

For more information on the VoiceXML Forum, or about the upcoming Users Group Meeting, please visit www.voicexml.org or contact the Forum’s Administrative Team at +1-732-465-6464.

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