San Diego, CA - Conversations - October 22, 2003 -- ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), the leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, today announced that it has formalized a dedicated directory assistance (DA) solutions group within its global professional services organization to focus exclusively on the growing demand for automated DA solutions. In addition, ScanSoft today introduced SpeechPAK™ 1.0 for DA, a packaged application kit that incorporates DA-specific technologies and professional services experience.

ScanSoft's specialized DA team and standards-based DA solutions provide customers with fully automated, speech-enabled DA solutions beyond frequently requested listings for total coverage of business, residential and toll-free listings. The company's fully automated DA solutions eliminate the need for agent assistance and deliver a significant return on investment (R.O.I.) within twelve months or less for many service providers.

"DA service providers have long since recognized the value that automated speech services provide. Most recently, service providers have employed speech recognition to automate prompts and frequently requested lists to handle more than 40 billion inquiries," said Dan Miller Senior Analyst at Zelos Group. "The introduction of SpeechPAK for DA is well timed, as it coincides with heightened competition and changing regulations across the globe, which are compelling service providers to offer a broad spectrum of services, including low-priced, fully automated query."

Though less than five percent of DA inquiries involve speech recognition today, Zelos Group projects that by 2008, automated handling of DA queries with speech recognition will be a global phenomenon handling over one-third of all calls from wireless and fixed line phones.

"What we offer to service providers worldwide is to make an increasingly strategic portion of their business -- directory assistance -- even more profitable without sacrificing that vital caller experience," said Steve Chambers, senior vice president and general manager of Network Speech Solutions at ScanSoft. "We have an impressive array of DA-specialized assets and now we have created the specific organizational focus, and packaged technology and services into our SpeechPAK, to bring results to our service provider customers faster and more reliably that ever before."

SpeechPAK 1.0: For High Quality, Faster Deployment of DA Solutions

SpeechPAK for DA combines ScanSoft's industry-leading speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) software, search capabilities and best practices in user interface (UI) design to help service providers rapidly deploy fully automated DA solutions. SpeechPAK accelerates R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of ScanSoft's standards-based partner platforms. SpeechPAK for DA contains the following components:

Standards-Optimized Speech Recognition Software - SpeechPAK includes ScanSoft's standards-optimized speech recognition software, which is available in 46 languages, and offers the largest vocabulary support in the industry, including recognition of vocabularies containing several million words, and the highest levels of accuracy across wireless and VoIP networks.
DA DialogModule™ - Leveraging ScanSoft's expertise in UI design, the DA DialogModule is a pre-packaged UI module for collecting location and listing information from a caller. Optimized for VoiceXML, the dialog is configurable and can be adapted to specific business needs by using a rich set of automation business rules to control the call flow and provide exceptional customer service. UI modules are available for business, government, residential and toll-free listings and can be configured for regional service or national directory assistance.
Business Rules Technology - Service providers can quickly incorporate their operator practices into an automated offering with configurable business rules that provide control of the call flow and determine when a listing can be fully automated.
SpeechFinder™ Database Integration Technology - The unique SpeechFinder technology combines the results of the speech recognition processing with the results of the real-time DA database search to quickly narrow the results to the correct listing. SpeechFinder features full database connectivity with business databases like Oracle 8, as well as industry-leading DA databases, such as those provided by ISx and Varetis.
FindIt™ for Free Text Input - FindIt, ScanSoft's intelligent search engine with Web search technology, allows for free form input so that callers can find the correct listing even if they don't know exactly how it is listed in the DA database. By using statistical modeling techniques, FindIt can successfully locate listings even when words are spoken in the wrong order or left out entirely.
Name Lexicons - Name lexicons, or proper name dictionaries, enhance the capabilities of the recognizer to correctly identify personal names and business names, using common pronunciations. Name lexicons are available for multiple languages.
Industry-Leading TTS Optimized for Listings Playback - ScanSoft's natural-sounding TTS engines offer an unprecedented 22 languages and 36 male and female voices and include pre-defined and customized dictionaries for all listing types to ensure a smooth and enjoyable caller experience for any directory assistance application. In addition, service providers can also create a custom voice for their DA solution through ScanSoft's Virtuoso™ program.
Nightly Update Tools - SpeechPAK for DA features tools to automate the initial data load and nightly churn that is inherent to DA databases. In addition to managing listing changes, these tools contain thousands of business rules for generating synonyms and normalizing listing information. Incorporated into the tools are automatic quality assurance checks and emergency update procedures to quickly rectify incorrect listing information.
Development and Reporting Tools - SpeechPAK for DA includes tools for logging, transcription, grammar updates and reporting to reduce the cost of initial development and ongoing management of the DA solution. Pre-built and custom reports allow service providers to accurately measure their R.O.I. for an automated DA solution and maintain control over the caller's adoption of an automated DA solution.
Next-Generation DA Solutions - Service providers can also leverage ScanSoft's X|mode™ multimodal platform for enhanced DA services such as providing listings using SMS, location-based services, driving directions and reverse directory look-up.

ScanSoft Professional Services Experience

SpeechPAK for DA is offered through ScanSoft's specialized DA services group, which has more than 120 years of cumulative experience in DA services and a presence in more than 15 countries. Service providers can engage ScanSoft's DA group for the following services:

UI services to design and configure the dialog using custom automation business rules and prompting;
Systems Integration of the DA DialogModule into a service provider's DA application and database; and
Additional tuning of the DA solution during and after deployment to optimize performance.

ScanSoft powers fully automated DA solutions for service providers around the world including a leading service provider in Belgium, Eniro Autosvar (Sweden), Japan Multimedia Service, Portugal Telecom, SNT (Netherlands), TDC, (Denmark), Telefonica de Argentina and Voice Data Bridge (Netherlands). In addition, ScanSoft partners with DA experts including British Telecom, Envox Worldwide, IBM, ISx, Soleo Communications, Telecordia, Varetis, VoltDelta and many others to ensure high quality speech services for its customers.

Pricing and Availability

SpeechPAK 1.0 for DA is available in Q1 2004 and will be distributed through select DA partners worldwide. Please contact your local ScanSoft sales or ScanSoft partner representative for pricing.

About ScanSoft® Network Speech Solutions

ScanSoft Network Speech Solutions is the global leader in advanced network speech technologies and professional services. Enterprise and telecommunications organizations around the world such as AOL Time Warner, Bank of America and Qantas Airways leverage the power and innovation of the SpeechWorks® Suite of Network Speech Solutions to redefine the way they exchange vital information with customers and employees over the telephone. With a sales and engineering presence in more than 15 countries, ScanSoft is uniquely positioned to help companies create and implement sophisticated speech solutions that deliver proven economic benefits and the highest levels of caller satisfaction. For more information, visit www.scansoft.com/network/.

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is the leading supplier of speech and imaging 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, the ScanSoft logo, SpeechFinder, and FindIt are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SpeechWorks, SpeechPAK, DialogModule and Virtuoso are registered trademarks or trademarks of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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