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A Wonderfully APPropriate Partnership
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) June 14, 2010
Sometimes, itâs just easier to let others do it. At least that was the case for Bizmosis (http://www.bizmosis.com), since 2008, an Atlanta-based leading developer of innovative applications for mobile devices.
âOur initial objective was to develop our own Text-To-Speech technology for our iPhone® apps â but we quickly found that process to be far too difficult and expensive. We tried several vendors who offered such translation services â and found most available software too complex, too costly â and, just as importantly, the voices were boring or mechanical,â says Keith Landers, Bizmosis CEO.
Then, Ryan Turner, CTO for the company, sent an email to Cepstral LLC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
âIt was all fairly simple, actually,â states Patrick Dexter, Director of Business Development for Cepstral. âI called Ryan. We both very quickly realized that VoiceForgeâs capabilities were ideally suited to his need, which was quite similar to that of other software developers who had previously worked with us. Testing started immediately. He then bought access to our service within a month. There were, of course, a few minor bugs to work through, with minimal communication required. But it certainly didnât take long to get our partnership humming.â
VoiceForge (http://www.VoiceForge.com), the talking Software as a Service (SaaS) entity from Cepstral, makes it easy for online app developers to add high-quality TTS audio to any Internet site or device. An obviously perfect match for Bizmosis.
âWe use hosted API speech,â says Dexter. âJust send us your text, pick one of our 50 voices, from âCallieâ to âWhisperyâ (see http://www.VoiceForge.com/demo for entire library), and we return an MP3 file to you. We deliver as we advertise: Our services WORK â plus our pricing is affordable and weâre a firm that prides itself on your ease to do business with us.â
Landers agrees: âNot only did VoiceForge provide an economical solution, but their product sounded ânaturalâ â none of those pedestrian corporate-like voices. They were extremely responsive to our problem, too â coming right back to us with terrifically effective, within-budget answers.â
This comfortable relationship soon helped Bizmosis launch several voice-included apps: iTranslateâ¢, Ringtone Creatorâ¢, NewsButlerâ¢, Pirate Talkâ¢, and ShoutCardâ¢, just to mention a few.
âiTranslate was the first great output from our work with VoiceForge. All a user has to do is to type in a sentence, choose a language, and almost instantly, a translation is spoken back. Weâve been adding tens of thousands of new users each week for this app,â claims Landers. To date, more than 4,000,000 translations have been provided to more than 400,000 users, including a nurse in Texas who uses the app to optimally communicate with her Spanish-speaking patients in their natural language.
Next up was Ringtone Creator. âSimilar method to iTranslate: Just type in a sentence or phrase, choose from 50 voices, and, just like that, get a ringtone that talks,â says Landers, once the app architecture owner at Coca-Cola before growing several start-ups into multimillion-dollar businesses.
Per Landers, even user safety has been addressed with the ever-evolving list of Bizmosis offerings. âNews Butler, for instance, takes real-time data from text to voice, using VoiceForgeâs technology, so you can listen, no reading necessary, while driving or doing other tasks that require your full-time attention. And itâs commercial-free!â
The future is limitless, with e-learning a major target market for the ongoing Bizmosis-VoiceForge joint effort. Says Dexter: âWe truly like working with them because they know how to promote what they sell.â Adds Landers: âWeâre now so intrinsically linked to VoiceForge, we rely on them not only to be our TTS specialist, but to continually give us new ideas and suggestions as well. They keep developing new voices – which drives us to create more apps â which grows our business.â
Definitely not a bad result for not trying to do everything yourself.
Cepstral LLC is a leading TTS (Text-to-Speech) technology company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA providing speech technologies for the spoken delivery of information for telephony, mobile media, edutainment and assistive applications. We build high quality, natural sounding voices with personality for mobile, desktop, and server applications. VoiceForge is a patent pending hosted service delivering online TTS.
http://www.VoiceForge.com
http://www.VoicesforMac.com
http://www.Cepstral.com
We Build Voices®.
We Make the Internet Talk®
Contact:
Patrick Dexter
412-432-0400
sales(at)cepstral(dot)com
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