AVST Appoints Charles Stevens to Board of Directors

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FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST), a leading developer of communications solutions for businesses of all sizes, today announced that Charles Stevens, an industry visionary, business leader, and former Microsoft Corp. executive, has joined its Board of Directors. With over 20 years of experience in the enterprise technology market, Stevens brings a wealth of business knowledge and acumen to an already diverse group of industry experts and visionaries on AVST's Board of Directors.



Joining Microsoft in 1984, Stevens held a variety of senior management positions in both the sales and marketing and product development groups throughout Microsoft, with particular emphasis on supporting Microsoft's business strategy, global expansion, and enterprise sales and marketing initiatives.

"Charles' extensive background in developing and implementing business strategies for the enterprise solutions market fits perfectly with AVST's vision of providing best-of-breed unified communications solutions for enterprises on a global scale through the continued expansion of our distribution and technology partnerships," said AVST's President & CEO Hardy Myers. "Leveraging his impressive depth of experience and expertise, Charles' primary mission will be to provide AVST senior management with strategic advice as well as help facilitate the growth of our relationships with key distribution and technology partners, including Microsoft. We expect to take full advantage of his counsel and guidance as we continue to accelerate the worldwide expansion of our business over the next several years."

Stevens most recently worked in various business start-ups in Microsoft, including the Unified Communications Group and before that the Enterprise Storage and Management Group, creating new sales and marketing strategies, including a new sales model for incubation products, comprised of OEMs, VAR channels and technical solutions professionals.

Before that, Stevens was Corporate Vice President for the Enterprise and Partner Group, where he was responsible for Microsoft's enterprise sales and partner strategy worldwide and where he developed and implemented a new enterprise solution selling model. In this role, Stevens also managed Global Account customers and Global Systems Integrator and ISV relationships. Before that, Stevens managed the Business Solutions Groups and Applications Developer Customer Unit, which handled vertical industry strategy and relationships with ISVs and developers.

From 1994 to 1997, Stevens was Vice President of Microsoft's Asia region, responsible for sales, marketing, and services for Microsoft's products in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan. Under Stevens' leadership, the region was Microsoft's fastest-growing geographic market, with over 100% annual growth. Prior to 1994, Stevens managed development and marketing for database products and marketing for Microsoft Office applications and Microsoft Word and e-mail products.

Before joining Microsoft, Stevens was a Product Manager for Hewlett-Packard Co. in the Office Products Division. A native of Great Britain and a U.S. citizen, Stevens holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree in history and English from Bristol University.

About AVST

Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) is a leading developer of communications solutions for businesses of all sizes. Through its world-class unified communications platform, CallXpress(R), and its innovative speech application module, Seneca(R), AVST offers the industry's most powerful suite of second generation communications solutions including voice messaging, unified messaging, speech-enabled applications (including automated attendant and hands-free mobile worker access), and call processing (including embedded IVR).

The CallXpress unified communications platform is designed to facilitate the enterprise migration from legacy TDM call processing and voice mail solutions to IP-enabled unified communications by delivering the interoperability, scalability, feature depth and flexibility, and administrative capabilities that enterprise IT and Telecom teams are demanding.

Headquartered in Orange County, CA, AVST maintains facilities in Seattle, WA and the United Kingdom and has remote sales offices across the United States. With over 35,000 systems installed worldwide, AVST's unified communications solutions are sold and supported internationally by an extensive network of resellers and OEM partners. Established in September 2003, AVST was formed from the combined businesses of Sound Advantage (established in 1997) and the AVT division (established in 1982) of Captaris, Inc. For more information contact Denny Michael, VP of Marketing at 949-699-2300 or access the company's website at www.avst.com.
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