Peabody, Mass, March 18, 2003 - ScanSoft Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), a leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, today announced that it has been recognized by VARBusiness Magazine as one of North America's top vendors by virtue of the support it provides to the value-added resellers (VARs) of its products. As a result of the company's continued efforts to effectively serve its vast reseller community, ScanSoft garnered the magazine's coveted Five-Star Rating, the highest possible, reflecting superior commitment to its network of partners and resellers. Robert C. Demarzo, VARBusiness editorial director, notes that the solution providers through which ScanSoft resells its products are critical to providing the proper IT strategies and systems to corporations and institutions. "Through their expertise, solution providers add value to ScanSoft's products, ensuring proper and cost-effective implementation of technologies needed to drive business forward," he adds.

ScanSoft is committed to being a global leader in document automation and speech and language solutions. In order to ensure that its customers, across a range of industries including healthcare, government and financial services, are working as productively as possible, ScanSoft has created comprehensive partner programs. The ScanSoft Applications Solutions Partner (ASP) Program was created to meet the unique needs of VARs and system integrators committed to providing state-of-the art document automation and speech recognition technologies to their customers. By integrating these technologies as key business solutions, the customers of ScanSoft Applications Solutions Partners can work more productively and efficiently than ever before. More importantly, by offering these services, ASPs distinguish themselves from their competitors, by offering services and solutions that set them apart from other resellers. For additional information of ScanSoft's channel programs, please visit www.scansoft.com/partners.

"We're extremely proud to have received this rating from such a respected industry resource as VARBusiness," said Wayne Crandall, senior vice president of sales and business development at ScanSoft. "We have made it a high priority as a company to effectively support this effort, and will continue to provide our partners with the high quality training, support and value they have come to expect."

VARBusiness is the leading trade publication for Value Added Resellers (VARs) worldwide, with a circulation of over 105,000 readers. Every year, many resellers look to the Annual Partner Programs Guide when selecting vendor partners. Each vendor channel program is rated from one to five stars by a prestigious panel composed of 180 solution provider executives, and the results were tabulated by Answers Research, an independent market research and consulting firm.

The panel rates the importance of 16 vendor-program criteria, such as training, certification and sales leads. Of the more than 300 vendor programs reviewed in four categories, only 48 received the coveted five-star rating in the magazine's ninth annual Partner Programs Guide survey. The VARBusiness Partner Program Guide for 2003 is available at www.varbusiness.com/sections/main/2003ppg.asp

About VARBusiness Magazine

For the past 16 years, VARBusiness' strategic resources have been the gateway to the Solution Provider community. VARBusiness provides unique strategic business and technology insight for Solution Providers through industry-defining research, in-depth editorial, channel events and innovative Web services, enabling these IT professionals to make educated decisions for their businesses, partnerships and customers. VARBusiness has been the recipient of numerous industry awards for both editorial content and design. For additional information about VARBusiness products, events and services, please visit our Web site at www.varbusiness.com

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is a 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 is a registered trademark 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 statements in this press release that relate to future plans, events or performance are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with market trends, competitive factors, and other risks identified in ScanSoft's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof.

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