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Yahoo! Taps GIPS to Optimize New IM Voice ServiceTMCnet Contributing Editor Global IP Sound (GIPS) announced on Wednesday that it was tapped by Yahoo! Inc. to use the company's VoiceEngine Multimedia technology to deliver voice in its newly released Yahoo! Messenger with Voice IM client.
"Yahoo! Messenger with Voice will now be equipped with the best available voice quality to truly stand out as the market leading IM provider," said Gary P. Hermansen, president and CEO of Global IP Sound in a statement. "We are excited to play an integral role in such an innovative product, and look forward to enabling Yahoo! to provide their IM users with an unmatched feature set and user experience." With the addition of GIPS VoiceEngine Multimedia, the new Yahoo! Messenger with Voice client will offer users enhanced audio quality. "With VoiceEngine Multimedia, applications developers can focus on their core competency without having to worry about complex issues such as jitter, delay, packet loss and acoustic echo," noted the companies' news release.
The GIPS VoiceEngine Multimedia platform will provide enhanced PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone call-quality across Yahoo! Messenger with Voice's localized versions worldwide. The new beta of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice was launched in the U.S. today.
"Yahoo!'s top priority is to provide the best quality calls possible to our millions of users worldwide and we decided to license Global IP Sound's voice technology into Yahoo! Messenger with Voice," said Jeff Bonforte, director of Yahoo! Messenger. "Now that Yahoo! Messenger with Voice has the best calling quality possible, our competitive differentiators can really shine, from direct access to the world's largest email and photo sharing services to fun self expression with Avatars and emoticons."
Yahoo! had introduced PC-based calling features to its IM client for international users towards the end of last year. Then last month, the company announced it partnered with Cingular Wireless so its subscribers could access their favorite Yahoo! Internet customized online content, services and community on their wireless phones thanks to a partnership with AT&T Inc. The three companies teamed up to launch AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile, an integrated service that offers this real-time access.
GIPS' voice technology is behind VoIP-based services provided by Skype (News - Alert), EarthLink and Google (News - Alert).
Global IP Sound
Yahoo! Inc.
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