ScanSoft's New AudioMining XML Speech Indexing Technology Gains Support from Microsoft and Other Key Technology Organizations

Leading Technology Vendors and Analysts See Significant Opportunities for Enabling the Text Search and Precise Playback of Audio and Video Content

PEABODY, Mass., March 26, 2002 - ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), a leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, today announced broad industry support for its AudioMining™ XML speech indexing technology. In a related announcement today, ScanSoft introduced two new products based on AudioMining technology - the AudioMining Development System and Dragon® MediaIndexer™ for Windows.

ScanSoft's AudioMining XML speech indexing technology uses advanced speech recognition to create word, timestamp and meta-data from every word spoken within audio and video files. This allows the content within rich media to be searched using text keywords and phrases, and the playback of search matches at precise locations within the audio and video files.

Currently the speech information within rich media is hidden from standard text-based Web index and search servers, as well as from content management applications. As a result, the information within financial briefings, news broadcasts, government hearings, industry presentations and training videos cannot be easily found or played. AudioMining XML speech indexing overcomes this barrier to productivity by creating searchable text for rich media files. The resulting XML speech index data can be used within existing search products to associate text keywords with precise locations within an audio or video file.

AudioMining XML speech indexing significantly increases the value of existing search products and also connects rich media with business productivity applications. For example, AudioMining can connect Microsoft Windows Media files with Microsoft SharePoint to enable affordable media management applications. Use of AudioMining within traditional information capture systems, such as ActionPoint InputAccel™, enables rich media to be automatically processed into archive systems in the same way that these systems process scanned paper and digital documents.

ScanSoft's AudioMining XML speech indexing technology has received broad support from a variety of leading technology organizations, including:

• Microsoft SharePoint Group
  "SharePoint and ScanSoft's AudioMining technology share synergy to offer the end user effective technology to aggregate audio and text information among small and large groups within an organization," said Gytis Barzdukas, group product manager for Microsoft SharePoint. "The business benefits of this combined technology will provide superior management for multiple data stores and file formats."



• Telequip Labs
  "Our call recording solutions can be used by security personnel to help monitor and screen conversations between high-risk individuals," said John Mow, vice president and CTO, for Telequip Labs, Inc. "ScanSoft's AudioMining will allow us to analyze recorded phone calls, not only to identify known security vocabulary words, but also to identify new subjects that might warrant investigation. Thanks to AudioMining, phone call conversations can now be searched and analyzed as simply as other text data, which dramatically increases the types of solutions our business can offer to our customers."



• ActionPoint
  "As an information capture solution provider, ActionPoint's vision is to help our customers transform any form of communication with their customers, partners or employees into usable content. Content that drives their enterprise systems. Historically, these critical business communications have been on paper and fax. More recently CRM initiatives are driving our customers to capture more and more forms of communication, audio being near the top of the list. ScanSoft has been a key partner in providing us with superior OCR technology. We see the AudioMining technology as a logical extension to our InputAccel capture platform and commend ScanSoft in taking a bold step towards make audio mining an affordable reality," said John Stetak, vice president, Marketing, ActionPoint Inc.



• Wohl Associates
  "ScanSoft's imaging solutions deliver significant cost savings and productivity gains through the automatic scanning and indexing of documents," said Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates. "Their AudioMining technology will both leverage ScanSoft's experience in imaging and expand their presence in content management, while establishing a new solution area in the speech processing market."



• TMA Associates
  "ScanSoft's AudioMining leverages its core speech recognition technology, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, into an important area, allowing voice files to be treated more like text files," said Bill Meisel, president of TMA Associates, a speech industry consulting group. "With small and large-vocabulary speech recognition offerings, as well as text-to-speech, ScanSoft is well-positioned to grow in many areas of the speech application market."



• J. Markowitz, Consultants
  "When you look at the capabilities of AudioMining - and the tools that have been released along with it - it becomes clear that ScanSoft was able to mine its rich history in enhancing productivity using document imaging and apply that history to the use of speech as a productivity tool for audio and rich media," said Judith Markowitz, president, J. Markowitz, Consultants. "This kind of cross-fertilization augurs well for future ScanSoft offerings and is good for the speech-processing industry as a whole."



• Document Imaging Report
  "At the recent AIIM 2002 Exhibition, enterprise content management vendors like Documentum, Interwoven, Gauss, and IBM all spoke about their visions to embrace multimedia files. Already a major player in the paper capture space with its OmniPage OCR technology, ScanSoft is now offering a tool to fulfill the indexing demands of emerging multimedia repositories," said Ralph Gammon, editor of the Document Imaging Report. "ScanSoft's AudioMining XML speech indexing technology is analogous to full-text OCR for audio files. ScanSoft is making good on its promise to deliver capture technology for multiple types of input."

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft is the leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions that are used to automate a wide range of manual processes - saving time, increasing worker productivity and improving customer service. For more information regarding ScanSoft products and technologies, please visit www.scansoft.com

Trademark reference: ScanSoft, AudioMining, Dragon, MediaIndexer and NaturallySpeaking are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other product names or company names referenced herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

The statements in this press release that relate to future plans, events or performances are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with market trends, competitive factors, and other risks identified in the Company's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof.

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