Conita Introduces Personal Virtual Assistant Software For Mobile Professionals

    PVA Software Transforms Any Phone Into a Voice Portal to Business Critical Information For Mobile and Remote Workers

    Driven by the need for mobile professionals to interact with corporate and public information sources, Conita Tuesday introduced its first Personal Virtual Assistant (PVA) system and related software products.

    PVAServer(TM) provides the mobile professional with instant awareness, knowledge and transactions by enabling anytime and anywhere voice access to the corporate network and Internet from a single touchpoint, the telephone. As Conita's PVAsoftware is easily customized, it also offers the opportunity for service providers to quickly offer customized services. PVAServer is being showcased at CT Expo at the Conita booth No. 225.

    The productivity enhancements instituted within corporate infrastructures are largely unavailable to the 70 million high value mobile or remote professional workers. Using Conita's PVAServer, these users can now access and interact with any data that resides on a corporate network with simple conversational language from any location.

    PVAServer is a software platform that transforms any phone into a voice portal through which remote users can access any information on public and corporate network. Conita's optional PVA connector for Microsoft Exchange application is fully integrated with Exchange/Outlook so that mobile professionals can manage messages, calendars, contacts, and call control features. Supporting both a COM interface and a telephony interface to voice messaging and PBX systems, PVAServer is the first open, scalable and robust PVA platform. PVAServer was designed to allow developers, VARs, Integrators, ASPs and service providers to quickly create, modify, and deploy custom PVA applications that meet specific customer needs. A PVA deployment can be mass-customized, with each person able to converse with the network differently (thus the "P" for personal in PVA).

    Recognizing the complexity in existing solutions, Conita was founded to deliver the first fully functional, easy-to-use PVA. "We knew that the key to success was a delightful user experience," said Jeff McElroy, president and CEO of Conita. "With Conita's PVA, corporations, VARs, ASPs and integrators will be able to easily and immediately enhance the productivity of people on the go."

    Bill Hills, a senior telecommunications analyst at Aberdeen Group in Boston concurred that, "The Conita PVA will bring an unprecedented level of data interaction to the mobile professional and is a tremendous value for companies looking to enhance their productivity investments."

    Target Market

    Initially, Conita will deploy PVA technology for Fortune 1000 customers who have invested in leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. The ability to access and interact with customer information, coupled with the call management and messaging features of the PVA, allows users to greatly enhance the return on investment of their CRM software. Conita's PVA enables mobile professionals to harness the just-in-time awareness, knowledge, and transactions that are crucial in successful sales strategies. In addition to mobile professionals, Conita's PVA architecture will enable service providers to quickly deploy customized premium services.

    Product Attributes

    PVAServer and its related software offer the following benefits to increase productivity of mobile users:

    Natural Spoken Dialog -- PVAServer relies on normal conversational English without the need for restrictive vocabularies or time-consuming menu choices. PVAServer invokes a highly developed Voice User Interface that interacts with the user and adapts to a specific user's context and their usage patterns. This is enabled by Conita's Conversant Internet Engine(TM) which is a discourse engine providing API-like interface to speech recognition (ASR) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) engines.

    Application Reach -- Conita's optional PVA connector for Microsoft Exchange allows the PVA to be immediately integrated with a company's Outlook, BackOffice and Exchange infrastructure. Since PVAServer simply appears to be a web server to the corporate network it is non-intrusive. Using Internet standards, Conita's underlying Conversant Internet Engine can support access to Internet content. With a flexible and open architecture, the PVAServer can be quickly adapted to access corporate data stores and CRM applications. Conita's platform also enables remote users to perform conference calling and manage inbound/outbound calls using voice commands.

    Customizable -- Using Conita's PVAStudio(TM) development suite, corporations, integrators and VARs can quickly create voice applications to extend PVA data reach and PVA functionality to suit their needs. Conita's scalable publish and subscribe model enables easy modification of existing services and quick creation and deployment of new services. New applications can quickly be developed to access virtually any information source, such as Lotus Notes, Oracle databases, or Internets/Intranets.

    Conita's PVAServer is a server-based software platform supported on servers running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with NT Service Pack 5.0 or Microsoft Windows 2000.

    Pricing and Availability

    PVAServer and PVA adapter for Microsoft Exchange are immediately available. PVAStudio and CRM connectors are available to selected channel partners. Street pricing as follows:

PVAServer(TM):                       $3,995 per telecommunication port
PVA adapter for Microsoft Exchange:  $4,995 per system installation
PVA CRM adapters:                    $4,995 per system installation
PVAStudio(TM):                       $995 per user seat.

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