ScanSoft SpeechPAK TALKS Nominated for Global Accessibility Award

PEABODY, Mass. - ScanSoft's SpeechPAK TALKS™ solution has been nominated for the 2005 GSM Association Awards for "Best Use of Mobile for Special Needs and Accessibility." This year's awards attracted nearly 450 entries from 53 countries around the world.

"As the GSM industry heads toward the next billion customer landmark, it is innovation and ingenuity of the caliber of this year's GSM Awards nominees that will be key to driving and accelerating growth globally," said Robert G. Conway, CEO and member of the board, GSM Association. "This year we have seen an exceptional quantity and quality, and the competition has been fiercer than ever."

ScanSoft SpeechPAK TALKS™ is an application designed to make handsets accessible to blind and visually impaired users, and works with the phone's existing interface to read aloud the device's text display such as menus, contacts and short messages in a synthesized voice.

SpeechPAK TALKS has been endorsed by organizations such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) in the UK and the American Foundation for the Blind. The application has also been adopted by several major networks including Vodafone, Cingular, Orange and Telecom Italia.

"ScanSoft is addressing a crucial need with SpeechPAK TALKS, as most mobile phones are not designed to be entirely inclusive to the blind and low-vision community," said Steve Tyler, strategic manager digital technology, RNIB. "We are extremely impressed with the quality, performance and features provided with the SpeechPAK TALKS application, and see this as an important application for every blind and low-vision mobile phone user."

The Awards are open to all industry players - mobile operators, device manufacturers, application developers, billing system providers, CRM solution providers, infrastructure providers, content aggregators, originators and providers - who offer content, products or services that run on GSM, GPRS, EDGE and 3GSM (W-CDMA) networks used by 1.2 billion people worldwide. Winners will be announced at the 2005 GSM Association Awards Gala Dinner at the 3GSM World Congress (ScanSoft's booth in hall2 D40), in Cannes, France on Tuesday, February 15, 2005.

With ScanSoft SpeechPAK TALKS™, users can:

• Hear caller ID information and check logs of incoming and outgoing calls
• Write and listen to emails, text messages and notes
• Manage contact information and dial phone numbers from the directory
• Use the appointment calendar
• Edit and add contacts, settings and profiles according to their personal preferences
• Use the calculator, alarm clock and other important tools
• Hear information about the battery level, network and signal strength