ScanSoft Joins Microsoft in Tablet PC Launch Activities

ScanSoft Participates in Boston, London, Munich and New York Events;
Provides Online Demos of Tablet PC Productivity Solutions

PEABODY, Mass., November 7, 2002 - ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), a leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, today will participate with Microsoft in a variety of customer, partner and press activities for the launch of the Microsoft Tablet PC Platform.

ScanSoft will demonstrate its solutions at several Tablet PC events in U.S. and European cities including Boston, London, Munich and New York. At the premier launch event in New York City, ScanSoft will join 10 other software vendors in a Microsoft partner pavilion to showcase solutions and products for the Microsoft Tablet PC. For the London and Munich events, ScanSoft will team with Hewlett-Packard to demonstrate solutions for partners and customers.

In conjunction with the launch, ScanSoft has also made available demos for several of its productivity applications for the Windows Powered Tablet PC at www.ScanSoft.com/tabletpc, a special section of the company's Web site. These include:

• ScanSoft® OmniForm® eForm Filler - Electronic forms solution that has integrated Tablet PC support for in-field handprint recognition and conversion.
• ScanSoft ASR Embedded Development System - Speech solutions that help developers add speaker-independent voice command and speech-enabled form-filling capabilities to Tablet PC applications.
• ScanSoft RealSpeak™ Text-to-Speech (TTS) - Most widely used product for converting text into natural-sounding, synthesized speech in a range of applications and devices.

In October 2002, ScanSoft announced it had joined the Microsoft Tablet PC Platform initiative. As a Tablet PC Early Adopter, ScanSoft intends to enhance its popular desktop productivity applications with features that highlight the unique capabilities of the Windows Powered Tablet PC. In addition, to help accelerate the integration of speech into third-party applications, ScanSoft will make TTS and automatic speech recognition (ASR) developer tools readily available to Tablet PC programmers.

ScanSoft is integrating the powerful capabilities of the Windows XP for Tablet PC operating system into a number of the company's popular office productivity applications and developer toolkits. These capabilities include:

• Enabling handwritten and speech-based electronic form filling through ScanSoft OmniForm electronic forms.
• Extending the popular ScanSoft PaperPort® digital paper management application to allow Tablet PC users to organize, use and share hand-written notes in the Microsoft Windows Journal utility.
• Delivering the ScanSoft ASR Embedded Development System with support for the Tablet PC, allowing application developers to add speaker-independent and "microphone-free" voice command capabilities to their applications, which is important for multimodal applications.
• Delivering the RealSpeak SDK with support for the Tablet PC, allowing application developers to quickly add high-quality TTS capabilities to their applications, which is important for multimodal applications and for Section 508 accessibility.

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is a 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.

ScanSoft, PaperPort, OmniForm and RealSpeak are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company or product names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

The statements in this news 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.

Contact Information