PEABODY, Mass., October 22, 2002 - - ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), the leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, announced today that FileNET Corporation, the leading provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, has selected the ScanSoft® Capture Development System to add sophisticated scanning, optical character recognition (OCR) and PDF technology to FileNET's Capture solutions.

FileNET's ECM technology is a leading Web-based enterprise content management system that delivers the benefits of instant information access to commercial, government and academic organizations throughout the world. FileNET Capture Professional enables production-level scanning and processing of documents into FileNET's Image Services and Content Services repositories, using ScanSoft's OCR technology to automatically index document information, and PDF technology to create searchable archive documents. The FileNET Capture Desktop, which also includes ScanSoft technology, brings digital and paper capture capabilities to the professional office worker to meet lower volume and ad-hoc document processing requirements.

The ScanSoft Capture Development System, formerly the Developers Kit 2000 and ScanSoft SDK, provides application developers with an extensible way to add high-volume document imaging and capture capabilities to commercial, OEM and in-house applications. The ScanSoft Capture Development System includes high-level interfaces for scanning, OCR, ICR, OMR and barcode recognition, as well as complete input and output support for PDF, TIFF and a range of document formats. Pre-made user interface components are also provided, including scanner interfaces, image correction and image pre-processing controls.

"The high-level OCR accuracy and robust PDF developer tools offered by ScanSoft's document automation and OCR toolkits help provide a comprehensive capture infrastructure to our customers," said Michael W. Harris, senior vice president, Products & Strategy at FileNET. "Our partnership with ScanSoft allows these organizations to address a range of capture needs and provide significant gains in business productivity." The ScanSoft Capture Development System, based upon the company's market-leading imaging technology, supports developing 32-bit applications using C, Microsoft Visual C++, Visual Basic and ActiveX programming tools. The Capture Development System has complete support for importing, converting and creating PDF files, including image only and image plus text. It also includes ten powerful recognition engines that can be used individually or in concert. These include zone- and full-page optical character recognition (OCR) for document indexing and conversion, intelligent character recognition (ICR) for processing handprint information, and recognition capabilities for remittance processing and bar code data capture. Its ActiveX interface and controls for image viewing, zone control and text editing reduce development time by delivering pre-made user interface components to application developers.

"FileNET's selection of ScanSoft's imaging and PDF solutions for both production-level and desktop capture applications is significant as it shows the extensibility of our toolkit," said Wayne Crandall, senior vice president of Sales and Business Development at ScanSoft. "We are delighted to partner with FileNET to ensure that their customers benefit from the most accurate and complete capture solutions available."

About ScanSoft

ScanSoft, Inc. 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 additional information on the company, please visit www.ScanSoft.com.

Trademark reference: ScanSoft and OmniPage Pro, are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the trademarks of their respective holders.

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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