Nuance Communications Introduces Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, Breakthrough New Release of World's Leading Speech Recognition Software

Dragon NaturallySpeaking software from Nuance is used by millions of people - in the office, at home, at school, on the road, even in the operating room - to get more done faster by voice. The new release of Dragon delivers what matters most in speech recognition - superior levels of accuracy, seamless integration with the most popular PC applications, and unrivalled ease of use - and introduces new features that promise to help anyone get more done, faster:

-- Get it right the first time - For more than a year, Nuance has hosted a typing test on its Web site to highlight the boost in speed and accuracy that is delivered by Dragon (try it yourself at http://www.nuance.com/talk). After testing 35,000 people, Nuance found that the average typing speed was 35 words per minute (WPM), down from previous estimates of 40 WPM. Even more significant, the data showed that the average accuracy was only 58 percent. Dragon's near-perfect accuracy means less time spent pecking away at the keyboard and more time actually getting things done - at speeds of up to 160 WPM. Significant improvements to the Dragon NaturallySpeaking recognition system have yielded an accuracy improvement of more than 20 percent over the previous release, resulting in speech recognition accuracy levels as high as 99 percent. In fact, the product actually learns from corrections over time, making speech a more natural and satisfying experience. And, perhaps best of all, Dragon will never misspell a word. -- Dragon Voice Shortcuts - New Dragon Voice Shortcuts collapse common multi-step tasks into direct voice commands. Now you can send emails and schedule meetings, search the Web for information, products, news and more, or search your desktop faster than ever by saying what you want. For example: -- "Send email to Peter Mahoney and Steve Chambers," - Dragon opens the user's email program, creates a new email and puts the appropriate contact names into the "to:" box. -- "Search maps for Italian restaurants in Boston, Massachusetts," or "Search the Web for Madonna concert schedule," - Dragon opens the default search engine and Web browser to enter the spoken words in the search field and return the results. Users can also search specific sites by voice including Google, Yahoo, eBay, Wikipedia and YouTube. -- Quick Voice Formatting - Quick Voice Formatting commands allow users to issue a single voice command, such as "Bold Quick Voice Formatting," to make formatting text faster than ever. In addition, an extensive set of natural language commands means users don't have to memorize complex instructions. In Microsoft Word, for example, a user can say "make that bigger," and the font size increases instantly. -- Type as fast as you talk - With Dragon, spoken words appear on the screen almost instantly, making speech a faster, more natural approach to connect with your PC. Most people speak about 120 words per minute, but type fewer than 40 words a minute. Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets users create documents and emails about three times faster than typing. -- Cut the cord from the PC - For the first time ever, Nuance is offering a special Dragon NaturallySpeaking edition bundled with a Bluetooth headset to deliver a truly hands-free, untethered experience. With the accompanying Plantronics Calisto Bluetooth headset in certain bundles, people can move up to 30 feet away from their computer while dictating. In addition, because Dragon works with many digital voice recorders and personal digital assistants (PDAs), people can get more done while they are on the go, reclaiming lost time. -- Talk to your favorite applications - Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 lets people speak their minds quickly with today's most popular applications, including Microsoft Word and Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and popular instant message clients such as AOL Instant Messenger.

Changing Lives, One Voice at a Time

Dragon NaturallySpeaking gives people an easy way to get more done in less time - whether it is sending an email, writing a report, capturing an old family recipe or updating a blog. The best way to appreciate the power and flexibility of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 is to see how people in all walks of life are putting the software to work to make it easier for them to speak their minds.

-- John Ungerleider, a graduate school professor, uses Dragon to provide more comprehensive feedback on student papers -- Nicholas Harding, an environmental lawyer, uses Dragon to dictate all of his correspondence and other written material in order to increase his productivity and free time for his assistant to focus on "smarter" tasks -- Rob Wirthland, a PhD student, used Dragon to dictate (and ace) all of his final exams

To see more ways that Dragon helps people to speak their minds, please visit http://www.nuance.com/dragonstories/readstories.asp.

"Speech technology has reached a critical turning point where it is now fundamentally changing the way that we interact with the world around us," said Steve Chambers, president of the Mobile and Consumer division of Nuance. "What was once a 'Star Trek' dream is now a reality - on our mobile phones, in our cars, on our navigation devices, and now on the desktop with Dragon. With its near-perfect accuracy and easy-to-use interface, Dragon has touched millions of people by creating a more productive and natural experience at the desktop. There's no need to take time to train the software or learn arcane steps or commands anymore - people can simply start talking and see their ideas flow directly onto the page. It really is incredible to see."

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 is also Section 508 certified to allow hands-free use of the PC for those with disabilities and to assist people with carpal tunnel syndrome or other repetitive stress injuries. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been shown to reduce temporary labor costs and insurance premiums by reducing repetitive stress injuries and worker compensation claims.

The latest release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking comes from the world's expert in speech recognition - Nuance. Nuance speech technology touches millions of people every day as they interact with their bank or airline reservation system by voice, dial by voice from their cell phone, or interact with their car's navigation system.

Availability

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard, Preferred and Professional are available immediately through Nuance's Web site as well as its global network of reseller partners, software retailers and professional sales organizations. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal solutions and the Dragon NaturallySpeaking SDK will be available in the coming weeks from Nuance and through Nuance's value added resellers worldwide. Dragon Medical 10 will be available in September 2008 and new customers purchasing Dragon Medical version 9.5 can order version 10 at no charge via a mail-in rebate coupon or as part of their standard Maintenance and Support Agreement. For additional information on features, pricing and volume licensing programs, please visit www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking or call (800) 443-7077. More information about the various editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking can be found below.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses 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 and professional services. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Nuance, the Nuance logo, Dragon and NaturallySpeaking are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

The statements in this press release, relating to future plans or future events or services, are forward-looking statements which are subject to specific risks and uncertainties. These could involve particular market trends, competition factors and other risks described in the documents submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results, events and services may vary significantly from the forecasts. The reader is warned not to rely on these forward-looking statements without reservation, since these are simply reflections of the current situation.

The Right Edition for Every Person and Profession

The Dragon NaturallySpeaking family makes speech recognition available for everyone - at home or in the office - through various targeted editions:

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional is the ideal solution for busy professionals - such as those in the government, insurance and education industries - to create documents and emails, fill out forms, and streamline workflow tasks - all by speaking. Additionally, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Professional supports sophisticated macros for automating document-intensive business tasks and dramatically improving productivity, and also offers complete enterprise network support, including new security features, a special management guide for IT professionals and support for Citrix deployments.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred gives small business and advanced PC users the power to create documents, reports and emails three times faster than most people type. People can surf the Web by voice or dictate and edit in Microsoft Word and Excel, Corel WordPerfect, and most other Windows-based applications. Dragon Voice Shortcuts in Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred collapse common multi-click tasks into simple voice commands, and users can also create custom commands to insert blocks of texts or bitmaps - such as name, title, and signature - with a single utterance.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard is the perfect solution for a home PC user looking to make PC interaction easier, faster and more fun. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard, people can talk to the computer and watch the spoken words instantly appear in documents, email and instant messages. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard even lets people surf the Web simply by speaking.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal is the ideal solution for legal professionals looking to increase productivity and reduce transcription costs. Law firms and legal departments can create contracts, dictate briefs, and draft court documents or email messages all by voice. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal offers a preconfigured legal vocabulary that includes more than 30,000 legal-specific terms and phrases, and it even formats citations. Lawyers can browse through briefs or consult notes while entering text directly into virtually any Windows-based application, including the Microsoft Office suite and most case management programs. Additionally, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Legal lets users (or a third-party) create custom voice commands to instantly build and format templates for contracts or other legal documents, or trigger the execution of frequent or complex computer tasks.

Dragon Medical is the fastest, most complete way for physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers to create transcription-free clinical documentation in their own words. Unlike other Dragon 10 software versions, Dragon Medical exclusively enables clinicians to dictate directly into any Windows- or Citrix-based electronic medical record (EMR) system. Dragon Medical includes 75 medical specialty vocabularies to ensure proper spelling, pronunciation and high accuracy and has proven to be up to 33 percent more accurate than non-medical speech recognition software in clinical use. With more than 70,000 users today (see today's press release), Dragon Medical allows healthcare providers to quickly voice-enable their clinical documentation process with no IT integration required, for high out-of-the-box accuracy and rapid physician utilization. Dragon Medical 10 will be available in September 2008 and will introduce additional advanced, medical version-only features including enhanced medical formatting and improved EMR dictation and navigation capabilities. New customers purchasing Dragon Medical version 9.5 can order Version 10 at no charge via a mail-in rebate coupon or as part of their standard Maintenance and Support Agreement.

SOURCE: Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc. Erica Hill, 781-565-5218 erica.hill@nuance.com or Weber Shandwick Lindsay Rolfson, 617-520-7064 lindsay.rolfson@webershandwick.com