LAS VEGAS-General Magic Inc. said it plans to begin commercially offering July 30 its integrated voice and data virtual assistant network service via local, regional and national value-added resellers.
The service, previously code-named Serengeti, is officially renamed Portico. The Portico brand name now will appear on all marketing and sales materials.
“As we move to commercial availability, our goal is to create a long-term brand identity for Portico that over time will establish a high degree of awareness, recognition and preference with our customers,” said Linda Hayes, vice president of marketing for General Magic.
The announcement followed closely after a new logo for General Magic was announced a few weeks ago. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also unveiled an intelligent voice user interface platform last month called magicTalk, on which the Portico service is based.
The company said it has begun training value-added telephony resellers on how to give technical support. General Magic expects the pricing for Portico will be modeled after that of cellular phone service, with a set monthly fee and designated number of minutes. Portico allows users to access their e-mail, voice mail, faxes, address book, calender and news services over the phone through spoken commands. The service uses the VUI technology to interpret commands and either play voice mail or, using text-to-speech technology, read faxes and e-mail.
General Magic also said Cellular One Group, BellSouth Cellular Corp., Bell Atlantic Mobile and Triton Communications have begun trials of the service on their respective networks.
