While I would like the acronym “VAS” to stand for “Voice-Activated Services”, it really stands for mobile “Value Added Services.” In Vodafonese, it refers to the set of VAS include ring-back tones, voice portal and speech enabled services that will now be based on a VAS server from OnMobile Global, one of the largest providers of “white label” mobile services.

Among the speech processing community, OnMobile made news in May 2008 with its purchase of the French automated speech processing specialist, Telisma. Since the acquisition, top management has denied that Telisma’s technology will replace existing solutions and services, which are based on a long-standing partnership with Nuance. In a report filed by Nikhil Pahwa, in Medianama, a Web site covering multimedia developments in India, OnMobile Global’s CEO Arvind Rao said definitively that Telisma was not acquired as a replacement for Nuance and that the cost of Nuance licenses are included in the delivery platform for existing services.

Yet Rao acknowledged that the company has developed Malay and Thai language models for Telisma and were in the process of developing 4 African language capabilities. The justification is shorter time to market and lower development costs.

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Tags: Speech recognition, mobile services, Vodafone