Frucall, A Free Phone-Based Price-Comparison Shopping Service, Launched In Beta

April 05, 2006 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
IRVINE, California, April 5, 2006 — Shoppers can now use Frucall to compare prices against Internet e-commerce sites and purchase products simply by making a toll-free call.

Shoppers who are not at a computer can call 1-888-FRU-SHOP (888-378-7467) and read or punch in the product's bar code. Frucall will confirm the name of the product and provide its price on Amazon and soon other e-commerce sites. Shoppers are then presented with a voice menu to “bookmark'', leave themselves a voice note for later reference, listen to customer ratings, or soon purchase the product. Shoppers can register at http://www.frucall.com to access their bookmarks and voice notes, review their search and purchasing history, or make a purchase.

Frucall is developed by the Consumer Business Unit of Millenigence, an industry leader in delivering information to communication endpoints such as IP phones and mobile devices. “We are pleased to provide this service so that consumers can have the power of online comparison shopping at their fingertips without the need for being online,'' said Saied Kazemi, President of Millenigence. “Frucall gives consumers a mobile shopping experience that they have never had before. It empowers them to make better decisions when they are out shopping, by giving them more pricing choices.'' The Beta release follows an invitation-only test period. Current users have praised the service for its ease of use, according to Kazemi.

Millenigence CBU envisions to become the platform of choice for delivering Internet information to cell phones and mobile devices via voice, SMS, or WAP, giving consumers full flexibility in the way they prefer to interact with the Internet.

“Mobile Shopping is a great example of application mobility. Millenigence is in a unique position to offer this service because our core expertise has been bringing mobility to applications. We have been doing this in our Enterprise Business Unit by delivering corporate data to IP phones and handheld devices through our DashPhone technology. Bringing mobility to consumer applications is a natural progression of the same vision.'' said Nasser Manesh, CTO of Millenigence. Frucall is a mashup service which combines a wide range of technologies such as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), XML, VoiceXML, TTS (Text To Speech), ASR (Automated Speech Recognition), SMS and WAP to provide real-time information from the Internet to consumer cell phones.

About Frucall — Frucall is a free phone-based price-comparison shopping service for consumers to compare prices and purchase products using their cell phones, anywhere, anytime. Frucall blends the benefits of in-store shopping with the frugal and flexible nature of Internet shopping, providing consumers with a unique mobile shopping experience.

About Millenigence — Millenigence delivers information available on corporate data networks or the Internet to business users and consumers on the communication device of their choice. Millenigence's core technology, DashPhone, supports all converged communication endpoints, including IP phones, PDAs, BlackBerry devices, and cellular phones, bringing mobility to enterprise and Internet applications.