
September
25, 2001
Nokia invests in
VoiceAge
Telecommunications pioneer to support VoiceAge's
growth over the next four years
Montreal, Tuesday September 25th 2001 —
VoiceAge Corporation of Montréal announced
today that Nokia (NYSE:NOK), the Finland-based
multinational, has extended its relationship
by becoming a minority stakeholder in the equity
of VoiceAge. In addition to investment considerations,
the agreement comprises knowledge and technology
sharing, which should significantly increase
business opportunities and support VoiceAge's
accelerated growth over the next four years.
Currently, VoiceAge expects to expand its workforce
by 40% by the end of 2001 to ensure it will
be able to meet the demand for its voice and
multimedia compression products.
Commenting on the agreement, Sylvain Desjardins,
President of VoiceAge, said: "First and
foremost, we were seeking a company whose partnership
would bring a value-added dimension and would
be a compatible fit. We were looking for the
optimal match that would enable VoiceAge to
swiftly derive tangible benefits. We are delighted
with this partnership agreement, essentially
because Nokia brings to the table the required
elements to ensure our solutions get an additional
boost in key markets around the world."
Petri Haavisto, Vice President, Application
Technologies, Nokia Mobile Phones, said his
company's association with VoiceAge is a natural
fit. "We have had a long and productive
relationship with the research and development
team of VoiceAge, resulting in many speech coding
technologies, such as the GSM EFR and AMR codecs
that have become industry standards," he
remarked. "The two companies have unique
synergies, and we are eager to continue this
prolific cooperation to support optimal network
convergence for the needs of the next generation
of communication."
About VoiceAge
VoiceAge Corporation develops narrowband and
wideband low bit-rate audio and multimedia compression
solutions for wireless 2G, 2.5G, 3G, and voice-over-packet
networks. As experienced daily by hundreds of
millions of users worldwide, VoiceAge's standard
and proprietary solutions, built on the world-renowned
ACELP® technology, ensure unsurpassed multimedia
experience. VoiceAge was founded in 1999 and
is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. VoiceAge,
SPOTxde and ACELP are trademarks of VoiceAge
Corporation. For more information about VoiceAge,
visit www.voiceage.com.