ScanSoft Announces Worldwide Bundling Agreement with HP

HP Selects ScanSoft's OmniForm for High-End Line of Scanners

PEABODY, Mass., - September 26, 2000 - ScanSoft®, Inc. (NASDAQ: SSFT), the leading provider of digital imaging software, today announced a worldwide agreement to bundle its award-winning software with the HP ScanJet 6300C Professional Series scanner from Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP), a global leader in computing and imaging solutions for homes and businesses. In addition to the popular PageKeeper® Pro paper management program, the HP ScanJet 6300C Professional Series scanner will bundle ScanSoft's award-winning OmniForm® electronic forms software for the first time. This agreement marks the first time that the OmniForm software has been bundled with any scanner.

"We are continually seeking top business-oriented partners to help us build HP's presence in the business and corporate market," said Mary Peery, general manager of HP's Colorado Digital Imaging Division. "Bundling ScanSoft's business-focused software, such as OmniForm, with our professional scanning devices is key to building the best solution for the corporate end-user."

HP Users Can Instantly Convert Paper To Electronic Forms

ScanSoft's OmniForm offers business and corporate users a full-featured forms solution that provides powerful tools for paper-to-web conversion, editing, designing, defining fillable fields, saving in a variety of formats and other important features. OmniForm employs the same OCR engine as the award-winning OmniPage Pro® to accurately convert printed words into electronic text and recognize hyperlinks to URLs and e-mail addresses. As a result, OmniForm is able to create an editable, intelligent electronic form that maintains the look and feel of the original paper form.

HP is the first company to bundle OmniForm, offering business users unparalleled forms management in addition to the other professional capabilities of its ScanJet 6300C Professional Series scanners, including OCR, document management, photo editing and web site creation.

"HP recognizes the important role that forms play in today's business workflow," said Wayne Crandall, Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development for ScanSoft. "For the first time, business and corporate users can leverage the powerful combination of a top of the line HP scanner with the leading forms software, enabling them to take static paper forms and convert them into high quality electronic forms. This will save businesses the time, money and inefficiencies traditionally associated with managing paper forms."

ScanSoft Continues to Tap the Business and Corporate Markets

ScanSoft continues to move into the business and corporate markets, offering a range of powerful products for the vast numbers of business users. Joining forces with HP, the market leader in flatbed scanner sales, gives ScanSoft an enormous opportunity to expand its growing corporate customer base. ScanSoft's leading software products, including OmniForm and PageKeeper Pro, will now be available to numerous professional HP scanner users, allowing ScanSoft to leverage a significant market opportunity.

This latest agreement between HP and ScanSoft builds upon a long-term bundling relationship between the two companies. Currently, ScanSoft is the sole supplier of paper management and forms solutions for HP scanners. HP recently announced two additional bundling agreements with ScanSoft: ScanSoft's PageKeeper Standard software is currently included with the HP ScanJet 5300C scanner and ScanJet 6300C Professional Series scanners, and ScanSoft's PaperPort® Mac software is bundled with the HP ScanJet 5370C scanner.

About ScanSoft, Inc.

Headquartered in Peabody, MA, ScanSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: SSFT) is the leading developer of digital imaging software that enables users to leverage the power of their scanners, digital cameras and other electronic devices. ScanSoft's award-winning product line - Pagis, TextBridge, PaperPort, OmniPage Pro, OmniForm, eOmniForm, OmniPage Pro Scan Suite Plus, Developer's Kit 2000, ImageAXS, PageKeeper, Paper Converter, Kai's PhotoSoap2, Kai's SuperGoo, Kai's PowerShow, and PhotoFactory - enables users to capture, recognize, edit, manage and share documents and photos electronically by taking advantage of ScanSoft's cutting-edge technology.

ScanSoft has established numerous strategic partnerships with the industry's leading scanner and multifunction vendors to deliver the most comprehensive and cost-effective solutions for its customers. Vendors who have chosen ScanSoft's cutting-edge OCR technologies to incorporate into their own product offerings include Brother, Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard Company, Lotus Development Corporation, Microtek, Mustek, Primax, Sharp, Symantec Corporation, Visioneer, Xerox and others. ScanSoft's leading OCR technology was recently licensed by Microsoft for use in future products. ScanSoft continues to cultivate and develop strategic partnerships to deliver the most comprehensive and cost-effective solutions for its customers.

ScanSoft software is sold and marketed worldwide through retail, dealer and OEM channels and the Internet, capturing the consumer, small office/home office (SOHO) and corporate markets. There are more than 6 million registered users of ScanSoft products. ScanSoft can be found on the Web at http://www.scansoft.com.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the Company notes that the statements in this release that relate to future plans, events, performance, including without limitation the perceived benefits of the agreement, are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, engineering delays, market acceptance, the impact of competitive products and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports. Readers are cautioned not to place undo reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. ScanSoft disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward looking statements.