BT (NYSE:BT) and Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB) today announced the
latest updates to BT® MeetMe with Dolby® Voice™ ,
an audio conferencing service that makes conference calls sound and feel
like in-person meetings. BT
MeetMe with Dolby Voice combines Dolby’s nearly 50 years of
expertise in core signal processing and human psychoacoustic perception
with BT’s world-class communications capabilities to improve the way
people communicate at work, enhance business productivity, and reduce
the cost of conferencing.
Dolby Voice Conference Phone (Photo: Business Wire)
The companies announced two updates today:
• The new Dolby
Voice Conference Phone, an innovative device that
dramatically improves meetings, providing great sound quality and
capabilities that bridge the gap between in-room and remote participants
so that all meeting participants can contribute equally. (The phone will
be available later this year.)
• The BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice mobile app, which provides
access to the service from anywhere. (Customer trials of the mobile app
begin in April.)
According to Andrew Border, Vice President, Dolby Communications
division, “The Dolby Voice Conference Phone gives workers a full picture
of what is happening on a conference call. Everyone knows who is
speaking and understands what is being said.”
BT is announcing the availability of the BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice
mobile app for both the iPhone® and Android™ platforms. The
app provides workers a superior conference call experience from a mobile
device and a simple, cost-effective way for businesses to support
workers who connect to calls remotely. The app makes meetings easy to
start and join: conference participants simply tap in from the mobile
app. There’s no need to find the phone number or to compromise when
communicating from a mobile phone.
“The BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice mobile app strengthens our audio
conferencing proposition and reinforces the key advantages our product
offers in the marketplace. BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice offers what we
believe to be the best mobile experience and makes it more
cost-effective for organizations to support mobile workers,” said Howard
Dickel, CEO, BT Conferencing.
“Later in the year, we will be launching the BT MeetMe Dolby Voice
Conference Phone, which will complete our lineup, providing our
customers with the best audio conferencing experience at any time,
anywhere,” Dickel added.
BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice makes conference call participants feel as if
they are in the same room, enabling them to focus on the content of the
conversation, without the limitations of standard conference call
technology. Decisions are made, innovation increases, and distributed
teams collaborate more effectively.
According to industry analysts, this service has the potential to
transform the marketplace for business conferencing:
• “BT and Dolby are addressing the pent-up demand for a better, more
efficient and cost-effective way for workers to collaborate and achieve
results faster.”—Andy Nilssen, Senior Analyst and Partner, Wainhouse
Research
• “It’s really incredible and I think quite frankly it’s going to change
the way our industry works.”—Jim Burton, Founder and CEO, CT Link
• “We have experienced spectacular quality using BT MeetMe with Dolby
Voice. We wish all our conference calls could have such a high-quality
productive experience.”—Roopam Jain, Industry Director, Frost & Sullivan
To explore the gap between in-person meetings and conference calls,
Dolby conducted a series of experiments to compare how well workers
performed specially designed and highly interactive tasks when working
together in person as opposed to performing the same tasks using only a
conference call. The research showed in-person meetings to be the most
effective. In a comparison of conference call solutions, however,
workers who used the high-quality Dolby
Voice spatial-audio system were almost 60 percent more efficient
than workers who used a conventional conferencing system.
In a recent Dolby
Lab Notes blog post, Dr. Mike Hollier, CTO of Dolby’s Communications
division and an expert in auditory science and engineering, notes that
conventional conference calls are exhausting because they require people
to apply most of their conscious intelligence to analyzing and
deciphering audio information rather than the content of a meeting.
“BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice improves the way people communicate by
harnessing the collective IQ of all workers on a conference call—and can
help make businesses smarter, too,” said Hollier.
Several companies have selected BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice service based
on its ability to improve productivity, enhance collaboration, and
improve operations. Early results indicate that customers typically save
25 percent to 50 percent off their total conferencing bill when using BT
MeetMe with Dolby Voice. Dolby Voice lowers network transport and
connectivity costs, allowing meeting participants to gain access over
any IP network rather than using more expensive dial-in numbers. Dolby
Voice eliminates the need for companies to choose between quality,
convenience, and cost.
About BT
BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services
and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its
principal activities include the provision of networked IT services
globally; local, national, and international telecommunications services
to its customers for use at home, at work, and on the move; broadband,
TV, and Internet products and services; and converged fixed/mobile
products and services. BT consists principally of five lines of
business: BT Global Services, BT Business, BT Consumer, BT Wholesale,
and Openreach.
For the year ended March 31, 2013, BT Group’s reported revenue was
£18,103m with reported profit before taxation of £2,315m.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT
Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT
Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.btplc.com.
About Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB) creates audio, video, and voice
technologies that transform entertainment and communications in mobile
devices, at the cinema, at home, and at work. For nearly 50 years, sight
and sound experiences have become more vibrant, clear, and meaningful in
Dolby. For more information, please visit www.dolby.com.
Dolby and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of Dolby
Laboratories. Dolby Voice is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories. All
other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
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