GENT, Belgium, and PEABODY, Mass., May 14, 2002 - ScanSoft Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), a leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, today announced that QualiLife, a Swiss company specialized in developing and distributing of applications for people with disabilities, has selected ScanSoft® speech technologies for a range of innovative solutions. QualiLife has incorporated ScanSoft's state-of-the-art speech and language technologies, including RealSpeak™ text-to-speech, ASR 1600 speech recognition engine and Dragon NaturallySpeaking® dictation software for six European languages in its QualiWORLD® software family.

QualiWORLD allows people with disabilities to easily perform a wide range of functions from their personal computer. The solutions allow individuals to use their voice to create documents, make phone calls, surf the Internet, send messages, play computer games, read electronic books, and control home devices and appliances such as TV, VCR, radio, lights and air conditioning. Qualilife solutions have been successfully implemented in hospitals, private homes, rehabilitation centers, schools and retirement homes all over Europe.

"The software QualiWORLD brings a real revolution in the emancipation of a disabled patients with major impairment of motor functions and of communication. It is clearly showing its quality by the patients who are regularly using it," said Dr. med. F. Caranzano, chief doctor and specialist for orthopedic at the Swiss healthcare institution SUVA. "It can be adapted to the needs of every user and is easy to learn."

"Today's speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies offer true natural dialogue possibilities for disabled people. ScanSoft was the only company that could provide us with the high quality in the different segments of speech technologies and the languages we needed," confirms Claudio Giugliemma, CEO at QualiLife."The evolution in quality and ease of use opened a spectrum of possibilities helping people to interact through technology. Suddenly they are able to do things that have not been possible until now, giving them a great level of independence," he added.

Peter Hauser, ScanSoft's Senior Vice President and General Manager International, concludes: "ScanSoft is pleased to collaborate with QualiLife in providing speech technologies for these innovative solutions. The QualiWorld suite of services is a prime example of how speech technology can be applied to a variety mainstream applications, to the benefit of many people regardless of culture, language or ability."

QualiLife has incorporated the ScanSoft technologies into various applications of the QualiWORLD® solution, including:

QualiVOICE allows the user to control any function within QualiWORLD® using voice commands. This application is based on ScanSoft's speaker independent ASR 1600 speech recognition engine. Possibilities range from activation of any function within the solution to advanced environmental control such as "Open curtain" and "Turn the light on".

QualiSPEAK integrates ScanSoft RealSpeak™ text-to-speech technology and is integrated in every QualiWORLD® application allowing the computer to read out any text created by the user, hear which button is highlighted or key is pressed. Combined with the QualiPHONE application, it reads the written text directly to the phone with a natural sounding voice.

QualiDICT adds the power of continuous dictation to the solution, incorporating the award-winning Dragon NaturallySpeaking®. This application permits the user not only to dictate documents, email and web addresses, but also allows text formatting and editing. With the QualiPHONE application the user can dictate the message, which is read out by ScanSoft RealSpeak™.

About QualiLife

QualiLife is a Swiss company specialized in the development and distribution of state-of-the-art technologies with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people. QualiLife's assisting devices and systems are designed to help people with disabilities achieve greater independence by helping them communicate, have more control over their living environment, function more easily in the world, and participate in state-of-the-art rehabilitation programs. The company's focus is on technological advancement, innovation, quality assurance, and service. Working directly with people with disabilities is the only concrete way to efficiently develop and improve our products, incorporating the most advanced technologies and meeting the real needs and requests of the users. www.qualilife.com

About ScanSoft Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) 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, RealSpeak and Dragon NaturallySpeaking 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 trademarks of their respective owners.

The Company notes that the statements in this release that relate to future plans, events, performance, including without limitation the projected shipment dates, customers' opting to upgrade to newer or more fully featured products are forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, market acceptance, engineering delays, quality assurance testing delays, contractual negotiations, successful completion of beta site testing, the scheduling of orders, changes in operating systems, a significant change in the competitive environment, timely delivery by component suppliers and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports. Readers are cautioned not to place undo reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

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