Nuance to Provide T9 Technology to ZTE Mobile Phones

Nuance Communications, a software developer focusing on speech and imaging solutions, just annoucned that its entire T9 predictive input portfolio, which includes T9, XT9, T9 Write and T9 Trace, will be integrated into ZTE’s global mobile handset portfolio. The multi-year agreement continues both companies expansion and strengthens the partnership announced in March 2010, which provided Nuance VSuite and Vocalizer speech technology to ZTE devices.

“In order to continue successfully growing our global market share, we have to deliver our customers innovative yet sleek handsets that meet the various demands of their consumer base,” said Kan Yulun, CTO, handset division, ZTE Corporation. “Nuance helps us stay ahead by delivering smart, intuitive and easy-to-use speech and text input technologies, like T9 Trace and T9 Write – two very exciting continuous touch solutions that provide both ZTE and our mobile operator partners a great point of differentiation in the marketplace.”

Even though ZTE is not one of the leading handset manufacturers, the agreement will help the company to significantly upgrade its text input capabilities on its mobile phones. If everything goes accordingly, ZTE will be the first manufacturer to integrate the innovative new T9 Trace and T9 Write products for a major global carrier.

“We’re seeing strong global demand for multimodal input capabilities from our partners like ZTE to further set them apart in an increasingly competitive global marketplace,” said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. “The integration of the Nuance T9 across ZTE’s mobile device portfolio is a natural extension of our existing relationship in speech technology, and now we’re able to give ZTE the power to differentiate through innovation and customization.”

The Nuance T9 predictive text technology is present on more than four billion handsets worldwide. The agreement with ZTE will surely increase this number, thanks to the application's high functionality and ease of use. The T9 technology helps user to type faster and easier when sending text messages and emails, or typing URLs via any keypad format, including standard and touchscreen 12-key and QWERTY keypads.