UK-based company SpinVox have today announced a partnership with Telstra to provide an intuitive new feature to consumers. Voice2Text converts regular voice messages to text, which are then sent directly to your handset with the senders caller ID.

Telstra Group Managing Director, Ms Deena Shiff, says “Voice2Text saves time and improves productivity and means customers never need miss an important or urgent message, even when they’re in a meeting.”

Voice2Text is the first service of its kind to hit Australian shores.

SpinVox provide the functionality that runs the Voice2Text services. SpinVox was founded in 2003 by Christina Domecq and Daniel Doulton after Christina received fourteen voicemails in one morning and asked the question: “why can’t I get my voicemails as text?”

From that inspirational moment on, SpinVox funded an extensive research program, which has resulted in the core of the Voice2Text service: the Voice Message Conversion System (VMCC).

The VMCC combines state-of-the-art speech technologies with a live-learning language process enabling it to convert spoken word to text. Telstra’s Executive Director of Wireless and Mobility Products, Mr Roberto Vannini, states, “our customer trials have shown great levels of conversion quality and effectiveness.”

SpinVox currently provide their VMCC in four major languages: English, French, Spanish, and German. The company already has deals with carriers in North America, Europe, and South Africa.

In July of this year, SpinVox announced that more than 50 million voice messages had been converted to text, and forecast that around 300 million will be converted each month by the end of 2008.

Telstra will provide the Voice2Text service to business, government, and enterprise customers from the end of November, and all other customers in 2008.

Prices start at $10 for 25 messages, $20 for 80 messages, or 55c per message.

For more information from Telstra, see their website at http://www.telstra.com.
For more information on SpinVox and the other services it provides, check their website at http://www.spinvox.com.