Nuance Wins 2004 ''Product of the Year'' Award from Technology Mar

Nuance Wins 2004 ''Product of the Year'' Award from Technology Marketing Corporation's Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine

    Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

    MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 11, 2005--

Nuance 8.5 Selected for Its Ability to Boost the Bottom Line, Enhance the Customer Experience
    Nuance (Nasdaq:NUAN), the voice automation expert, today announced that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC(TM))'s Customer Inter@ction Solutions(R) Magazine (www.cismag.com) has named Nuance 8.5(TM) a 2004 Product of the Year award winner. Nuance 8.5, the newest release of the market's leading speech recognition software, is optimized for key industries and applications. Nuance 8.5 enables accurate, scalable, and easy-to-deploy voice automation solutions, giving companies the ability to improve customer satisfaction by providing faster and more efficient phone-based interactions that ultimately lower costs.
    "Each year Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine bestows its Product of the Year awards on companies that have demonstrated excellence in technological advancement and application refinements. With Nuance 8.5, Nuance has once again demonstrated to our editors that its products and services have gone the extra mile to help improve both the customer experience and the ROI for the companies that use them," said Nadji Tehrani, Executive Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Customer Inter@ction Solutions.
    Nuance 8.5 helps companies replace aging touchtone systems and improve their customers' experiences with phone self-service. It also helps reduce customer service costs, realize a greater return on investment, and significantly cut application deployment time by providing out-of-the-box voice automation accuracy that can result in as many as 50% fewer calls going to agents. Its advanced features and unique analysis and tuning tools enable the industry's most engaging and easy-to-use applications -- allowing callers to speak more freely and naturally when interacting with voice automation solutions. Nuance 8.5 also offers improved support for VoIP and wireless calling environments.
    "We have worked continuously during the past 10 years to both push speech into the mainstream and perfect our voice automation offerings -- and we have done this with Nuance 8.5," said Chuck Berger, president and CEO, Nuance. "Nuance 8.5 provides dramatic increases in out-of-the-box accuracy that can result in as many as 50% fewer calls going to agents, thereby allowing companies that deploy Nuance voice automation solutions to deliver an improved caller experience to their customers. We are pleased that Nuance's speech recognition engine has once again been honored by Customer Inter@ction Solutions as a 'Product of the Year.'"
    Customer Inter@ction Solutions has been a premier publication in the CRM, call center and teleservices industries since 1982. A full list of Product of the Year winners will appear in the publication's January 2005 issue.

    About TMC(TM)

    Celebrating more than 30 years as a leading publisher, Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC(R)) publishes Customer Inter@ction Solutions(R) and INTERNET TELEPHONY(R) magazines, Web portal TMCnet.com, and the online publications SIP(TM), Speech-World(TM), VoIP Developer(TM), WiFI Telephony(TM), WiMAX(TM), Alternative Power(TM) and BiometriTech(TM). TMC is also the first publisher to test new products in its own on-site laboratories, TMC Labs. TMC produces INTERNET TELEPHONY(R) Conference & EXPO, VoIP Developer Conference(TM) and Global Call Center Outsourcing Summit(TM). TMC offers live and online certification programs through TMC University. TMCnet.com publishes more than 14 online newsletters. Visit www.tmcnet.com for details.

    About Nuance

    In markets around the world, leading enterprises and telecommunications carriers -- including Avon, British Airways, Expedia, Nomura Securities, OnStar, Sprint PCS, United Parcel Service, Vodafone and Wells Fargo -- have worked with Nuance to ensure the best possible results from their investment in voice. Nuance is a leader in the voice automation market, providing software and solutions to more than 1,000 companies worldwide. Nuance (Nasdaq:NUAN) is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., and has offices around the world. For more information, visit www.nuance.com or call 1-888-NUANCE-8.

    This press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to Nuance, including, for example, those relating to the business and customer benefits attainable by using Nuance 8.5. There is no assurance that the results contemplated by any forward-looking statements will be realized. The following factors, risks and uncertainties, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements: the risk that Nuance 8.5 will not continue to be scalable, accurate and easy-to-deploy, will not improve the customer experience and satisfaction or lower costs, will not improve support for VoIP and wireless calling environments, or will not achieve other benefits in some or all circumstances; and other factors described in Nuance's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Nuance's last-filed Form 10-Q. Nuance does not undertake to update any oral or written forward-looking statements that may be made by or on behalf of Nuance.

    Nuance is a registered trademark of Nuance Communications, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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CONTACT: Nuance Gwen Murphy, 650-847-7131 gmurphy@nuance.com or Eastwick Communications for Nuance Becky Quinlan, 650-480-4032 bquinlan@eastwick.com or TMC Bill MacRae, 203-852-6800, ext. 226 bmacrae@tmcnet.com

KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: ADVERTISING/MARKETING PUBLISHING TELECOMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE PRODUCT SOURCE: Nuance Communications, Inc.

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