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Spectel and Ecrio Partner to Enhance Mobile Voice and Data Conferencing With Instant Messaging and Presence Awareness

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 January 2004, 06:00 CST

Solution Enables Mobile Users to Create Instant Meetings From a

Host of Mobile Devices

Spectel (www.spectel.com), the leading provider of integrated conferencing solutions, today announced that Ecrio Inc., a leading provider of instant communications application and infrastructure software solutions, has joined Spectel's Technology Partner Program to enable instant voice and data conferences from a broad range of mobile devices. As a result of this partnership, Ecrio has integrated its Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS) software with Spectel's MobileConneXion(TM) - an application that enables mobile users to launch, manage and participate in collaborative voice and data conferences from wireless devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs and laptop computers.

The combination of Ecrio's mobile communications applications and Spectel's mobile conferencing solutions enables mobile professionals to leverage presence, availability, and instant messaging to instantly locate and engage colleagues in a full-featured mobile voice and data conference session from a mobile phone or wireless PDA.

"Spectel is continuously developing new ways for professionals to meet and collaborate; and one of the ways we're doing that is by extending our proven, reliable and trusted voice and data conferencing solutions to the mobile professional," said Colm Saunders, general manager of US operations and chief marketing officer for Spectel. "Ecrio's presence and instant messaging applications are enhancing our efforts even further. They're providing the mobile presence indication that helps join wireless users with colleagues, customers, suppliers and even personal contacts, making conferencing more valuable to end users and to service providers."

"Spectel exemplifies the kind of technology partner that can truly maximize the value of Ecrio's instant communications software," said Nagesh Challa, Ecrio's President & CEO. "Presence and instant messaging alone are critical technologies for connecting mobile professionals. However, by adding an entirely new layer of capability, such as instantly bringing mobile colleagues together for a voice or data conference, we are creating a new category of mobile communications that translate to increased productivity for business professionals, and new revenue opportunities for mobile network operators."

Spectel voice and data conferencing applications enhanced by Ecrio's presence and instant messaging capabilities empower Spectel customers with a breadth of mobile conferencing capabilities, including:

-- Send instant messages between mobile devices

-- Access corporate directories

-- Determine participant availability

-- Send conference notifications to any mobile device

-- Instantly launch a voice conference with the click of a button

from a mobile phone or PDA

-- Add attendees to conferences in progress

-- Establish presence-enabled contact lists with real-time

updates of availability and location indicators

-- Mute participants in conference

-- Record conferences for future playback

-- Work on any type of mobile network (GSM, GPRS, TDMA, CDMA, and

WiFi)

Spectel MobileConneXion(TM) is the industry's first comprehensive mobile collaboration solution to enable mobile users to launch, manage and participate in collaborative voice and data conferences from wireless devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs and laptop computers. With MobileConneXion, Spectel is extending its award-winning voice and data conferencing applications to mobile users by integrating short message service (SMS), instant messaging (IM) and the wireless Internet. For mobile network operators and conferencing service providers, MobileConneXion delivers significant service revenue opportunities and reduced customer churn.

Spectel's MobileConneXion application enhanced with Ecrio's presence and instant messaging capabilities is currently available for evaluation and deployment.

About Ecrio

Ecrio Inc. is an instant communications software provider, headquartered in the Silicon Valley. Ecrio provides wireless carriers, handset makers, service providers, and corporations a suite of presence and availability based communication software for consumers and enterprise voice communication, messaging, entertainment, and m-commerce services. Ecrio's open and scalable software, adheres to industry standards, and includes the Ecrio AllMedia(TM) Application Server, Ecrio Presence Server, Ecrio Mobile Handset Software, and presence-enabled value-added services.

Ecrio's software supports the instant exchange of AllMedia(TM) content- text, drawings, handwritten notes, images, digital pictures, audio, video, documents, and voice- between wireless and desktop appliances over the world's fixed and mobile networks.

The Ecrio solutions have been selected by Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Ltd. (MCI), Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU), and Siemens ICM (NYSE: SI) as the IMPS offering for mobile carriers. www.ecrio.com

About Spectel

Spectel delivers integrated conferencing solutions to corporations worldwide. The company's leading voice, data and Web conferencing platforms, applications and professional services facilitate real-time communication among business users. Spectel's customer base includes leading conferencing service providers such as AT&T, Citizens Conferencing, Conference Plus, ECI, InterCall, Singapore Telecom and Sprint. The company's corporate clients include Nestle, The Walt Disney Co., General Electric, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs and UBS Warburg. These customers have selected Spectel for its commitment to innovation, reliability and usability.

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