Asterisk is the world's leading open source telephony engine. Its flexibility empowers developers and solutions providers to create advanced voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. Open source Asterisk is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and downloaded by developers around the world 3,000 times a day.

The professional-grade Asterisk Business Edition and AsteriskNOW make Asterisk easier to deploy, configure and maintain. Allison is the voice users first hear when installing any Asterisk release. All include a set of pre-recorded Allison voice prompts and Digium offers a service to provide professionally recorded voice prompts.

The service allows customers to tailor their Asterisk voice menus with uncommon names and unusual word combinations. With the Cepstral text-to-speech application now available from Digium, developers can mix pre-recorded Allison IVR prompts with informational messages; custom prompts; emails; dynamic information, such as appointment or account data; or any other English language text or files.

This allows the deployment of Asterisk applications that are of uniformly high quality and that do not require a mix of human-sounding and computer-generated prompts. "Allison Smith's voice is familiar to millions of people--nearly anyone who's used voicemail or an IVR system knows her," said Bill Miller, vice president of product management at Digium. "Cepstral's technology is uniquely able to convey static and dynamic announcements using Allison's voice, giving customers greater flexibility in how they can use Asterisk systems. Now the software is available directly from Digium, with Digium guarantees and support."

Craig Campbell, CEO of Cepstral, said: "By partnering with Digium to create a synthetic version of Allison's voice, we've added the power of speech technology to further enhance the well-known Asterisk brand. The ability to use computer automation to "say anything" in Allison's voice provides a new tool for Asterisk developers and increases the capabilities and value proposition to customers."

Pricing and Availability

The Cepstral Allison Voice Starter Kit is available from Digium for $79.99 for one port. Existing Cepstral customers who want to replace or supplement an existing voice with Allison's voice may purchase the kit for $29.99. For additional details, visit Digium at www.digium.com/cepstral