Foothill Ranch, Calif., August 7, 2006 – Continuing its mission to educate end users on the benefits of unifying communications, Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) has teamed with Business Communications Review to launch a series of educational programs, including a webinar, print ad campaign and electronic banner campaign, in conjunction with VoiceCon Fall 2006.  The webinar, titled “A VoiceCon Webinar: Unifying Communications in a Multi-Vendor Environment,” will take place at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT on August 9, 2006.

According to AVST, a leading provider of advanced unified communications solutions, communications technology is rapidly changing with the integration of voice and data applications.  In addition, acceptance and adoption of IP telephony has increased as the global workforce has become more mobile.  As a result, it is more important than ever for companies to make sure they implement strategies to embrace these changes without having to completely rip out and replace their communications infrastructure, especially in a multi-vendor messaging environment.

“It is essential for companies to be aware of the options that are available to them when seeking to replace or upgrade their communications platform,” said AVST’s Vice President of Marketing, Denny Michael.  “Through years of experience and successful implementations, we’ve found that one of the best and most effective tools to get the appropriate information out to end users is through informative online seminars.”

This latest AVST-sponsored webinar will be moderated by Eric Krapf, Co-Chair of VoiceCon and an Editor at Business Communications Review.  Panelists include Hardy Myers, President and CEO of AVST, Don Van Doren, President of Vanguard Communications and Jeff Sides, Director of Voice and Wide Area Network Communications for Lincoln Financial Group.  Webinar participants will learn the following:

• How to leverage an existing investment in multi-vendor communications infrastructure and still take advantage of technological advances
  
• How to migrate to IP telephony with virtually no disruption to employees and the organization, and no need for employee retraining
  
• How Lincoln Financial Group, a Fortune 500 financial services company, was able to integrate a multi-location, multi-PBX, multi-vendor environment to a single company wide communications solution

Also as part of this series of educational programs, AVST’s electronic banner campaign will run from June through December and will drive end users to view “Unifying Communications: The Movie,” a short film produced by AVST that explains the benefits of unified communications and AVST’s flagship CallXpress® solution.  The movie can be viewed online at www.avst.com.

Additionally, AVST will be on hand at VoiceCon Fall 2006, located at Booth #538, from August 21-24, 2006 in San Francisco to further its goal of educating end users about how to unify communications.  Now in its 16th year, VoiceCon is the leading conference and exhibition for enterprise voice, IP telephony and convergence in North America. The conference is a perfect venue for AVST’s mission as it brings decision makers together with the industry's pioneering end users, vendors and consultants to focus on the issues central to enterprise voice networks and the migration to IP telephony and convergence.

To access the free webinar on August 9, 2006, please register at http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=25509&s=1&k=9BAFA7A08C2F28BCCDE3FAE9F6EFF973&partnerref=pr or via the AVST website at www.avst.com.

About AVST
Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) is a leading developer of communications solutions with over 10 million users that rely on its products and services to maximize their productivity. With nearly 30 years of innovation excellence, AVST is focused on delivering solutions that increase user and business productivity. Its flagship Unified Communications platform, CallXpress®, offers unprecedented interoperability and delivers advanced call processing, voicemail, unified messaging, personal assistant, fax, speech and notification capabilities. With CallXpress, an organization can protect and extend its existing data and telephony infrastructure investment — now and into the future.

Headquartered in Orange County, Calif., AVST maintains facilities in Seattle, Wash. and the United Kingdom and has remote sales offices across the United States. AVST's Unified Communications solutions are sold and supported internationally by an extensive network of resellers and OEM partners. For more information contact Denny Michael, Vice President of Marketing, at 949-699-2300 or access the company's website at www.avst.com.