Nuance Communications and Gracenote Announce Speech-Enabled Media Player Applications for Mobile Devices

Expanded Partnership Delivers Full Voice Control of Music Collections on Mobile Devices

LAS VEGAS, Nev., April 5, 2006 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), the world’s leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, and Gracenote, a global leader in digital entertainment technology, today announced a joint partnership to develop and market speech-enabled solutions for digital music collections on mobile devices. The partnership expands joint development efforts established in January 2005 to develop speech-enabled automotive entertainment solutions. The companies will demonstrate the new mobile functionality in Booth # 5044 at CTIA Wireless 2006, being held this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The joint offering provides a rich voice-activated interface to select a song, artist or playlist on MP3-enabled mobile devices. This combined solution uses underlying speech capabilities from Nuance and Gracenote’s MediaVOCS phonetic database and playlist navigation to allow users to quickly and easily find and play the music stored on their mobile devices. Nuance’s best-in-class text-to-speech engine for the mobile environment then delivers verbal feedback for hands-free and eyes-free activation and selection verification.

“As handset manufacturers offer enhanced memory on mobile devices -- with expected capacity for thousands of songs within the next year – it is becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to navigate the large music collections stored on their mobile devices,” said Marc Theeuwes, director, mobile products, Gracenote. “By working together, Gracenote and Nuance are making it easy for music lovers to access their favorite songs on mobile devices through speech.”

“Nuance’s advanced natural language technology allows users to simply say ‘play’ and then name the song title, genre or artist,” said Craig Peddie, vice president and general manager, Embedded Speech Solutions, Nuance. “There is no requirement for a strict command interface that must be used in order to make the MP3 player function. Combining Nuance’s advanced speech recognition technology with Gracenote’s extensive database of media information will also allow people to simple say, ‘Play the Boss,’ and the player will use the information contained in Gracenote’s database to recognize the nickname for Bruce Springsteen, and then start to play songs recorded by Bruce Springsteen.”

The combined Nuance and Gracenote solution allows mobile device manufacturers to quickly deploy speech recognition technology in all types of MP3-enabled phones and to pass on superior performance and usability to their customers.

In addition, the solution will make it easier for consumers to manage and enjoy their mobile music collections by using voice command-and-control to:

Navigate to all media instantly:

• Play any individual song out of a collection, just by saying its name.
• Instantly hear a new mix, such as music from specific genres, artists, albums, regions, decades, or years.

Playlist instant new custom mixes:

• Describe any combination of qualities of the music they want to hear in natural language - such as “60s Detroit Soul” to generate new mixes on the fly.
• Keep in the mood of the song currently playing by asking for “More like this.”

Find information on artists and songs:

• Consumers will be able to get more information on a favorite song they've been hearing by asking, “What is this?”

About Gracenote

Gracenote is a leader in global digital entertainment technology. Formerly known as CDDB, Gracenote provides businesses with critical embedded software and metadata that enable consumers to better manage, enjoy and discover digital media. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote also has offices in New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul. Gracenote's solutions are embedded in leading media players such as Apple iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, RealNetworks Rhapsody, Napster and AOL Winamp, as well as software applications for Creative and iRiver portable devices. Gracenote's technology powers leading home and automobile consumer electronics brands such as Alpine, Denon and Marantz, Kenwood, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony and Yamaha, as well as international mobile music applications for KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Portugal), and Oi (Brazil).. For more information about Gracenote, please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance is the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for business and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications, and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share, and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com

Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.