HP Acquires PipeBeach

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced the acquisition of PipeBeach AB, a Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of speech-based products and technology that enable the delivery of interactive voice solutions. HP plans to integrate PipeBeach's VoiceXML-based(1) products into its OpenCall suite of enhanced telecommunications software.

This acquisition significantly enhances HP's ability to help telecom service providers, network equipment providers and independent software vendors simplify the creation and deployment of VoiceXML-based applications. HP will be better able to provide these customers with the flexibility and agility they need to get to market faster, reduce costs and improve customer loyalty.

PipeBeach's VoiceXML-based products and technology enable users to speak into their mobile phones and devices to obtain Web-based information such as news, stock prices and e-mail, as well as conduct transactions, such as online banking. The information and options are conveyed to the user through speech ? instead of text or images.

"HP is committed to the interactive voice market, and we intend to help our customers grow by providing them with a full spectrum of development tools, products and solutions," said Jean-Rene Bouvier, vice president and general manager, HP OpenCall Business Unit. "When we combine the advanced PipeBeach technologies ? and track record in VoiceXML -- with HP's OpenCall portfolio and unique combination of telecom and IT expertise, we can establish HP as a global provider of interactive voice solutions."

According to SRI Consulting Business Intelligence, spending on voice technology ? including consultancy and systems integration ? will increase rapidly to $20 billion in 2005 and to $40 billion in 2007.(2)

HP intends to build on its strong presence in the interactive voice market by leveraging the PipeBeach acquisition to accelerate the development of open standards for voice and multimodal technologies in three primary ways:

HP OpenCall speechWeb interacts between the telephone network and standard Web servers that host VoiceXML applications. It enables mobile users to interact with VoiceXML Web pages, using advanced speech recognition and text-to-speech or spoken prompts. Today, speechWeb supports approximately 40 languages.

The HP OpenCall speechWeb Portal Framework enables rapid service development of voice services in a portal environment. By calling a single telephone number, a user gets access to information services, such as news, sports or weather. The information also can be highly personalized, such as e-mail reading or listing of a personal stock portfolio.

Hewlett-Packard Co.

PipeBeach AB