Philips and AnNoText to Taunch European Speech Recognition Competence Center

VIENNA, AUSTRIA and MUNICH/DURIN, GERMANY - Royal Philips Electronics (AEX: PHI, NYSE:PHG), Wolters Kluwer Germany and AnNoText have joined forces to consolidate their experience in speech recognition and processing technology. They established a Speech Recognition Competence Center for the Wolters Kluwer Group, at the headquarters of AnNoText in D ren, Germany. The Speech Recognition Competence Center will function as a research and development platform for Wolters Kluwer's legal IT businesses in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, UK, The Netherlands and Germany. The legal IT company AnNoText - a Wolters Kluwer affiliate - and Philips will cooperate in the development of interfaces which will allow integration of speech recognition with various European business software applications. This will be based on Philips' speech recognition technology SpeechMagic. Wolters Kluwer Deutschland, the German branch of the Amsterdam-based publishing group, will support the R&D team by providing industry specific knowledge and documentation to develop ConTexts (vocabularies) for a legal application area. Marcel Wassink, Managing Director of Philips Speech Processing, says: "Establishing this competence centre is a strategic step towards new markets. By partnering with Wolters Kluwer, known as a content provider for legal, tax & business, health and education, we will introduce our technology to a wide range of European industries, who in the near future will be significant users of speech recognition." Martin Weber, Unit Manager Legal and Construction Professions, Wolters Kluwer Deutschland, adds: "Together with Philips we aim to accelerate the growth of speech recognition and speech processing technology. The IT companies within our Group, and their clients in particular, will benefit from the experience and innovative power fostered at the Speech Recognition Competence Centre."