New Release of the World's Best-Selling Alternative to Adobe Acrobat Makes it Easier and Faster than Ever to Create, Convert and Edit PDF

Burlington, Mass., August 21, 2006 - Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), a global leader of speech and imaging solutions, today announced ScanSoft® PDF Converter Professional 4, a major upgrade to what has become the world's best-selling PDF alternative to Adobe® Acrobat®. PDF Converter Professional 4 provides business users with all of the features they require - PDF creation, conversion, editing and form filling - with innovations not available in other PDF products. And with a price that is one-third that of Adobe Acrobat, PDF Converter Professional 4 delivers the affordability needed to put PDF on every business desktop.

Since its introduction, PDF Converter Professional has become the leading PDF alternative to Adobe Acrobat, with more than one million copies sold to individuals and businesses worldwide. With PDF Converter Professional 4, Nuance expands the technical and performance excellence of the product, and adds a wealth of innovative new features that allow users to do more with PDF than ever before. The result is a product that truly delivers "Better PDF for Business":

• Simplicity - Takes the clutter and complexity out of working with PDF through a completely new user interface designed to deliver maximum ease-of-use.
• Performance - Fast, reliable and optimized PDF; Delivers the fastest and most accurate PDF conversion available from the world leader in document conversion technologies.
• Compatibility - Embraces important new standards with PDF/A and Microsoft® Office 2007; Tuned for the forthcoming Microsoft® Windows Vista™; Cooperates fully with PDF for free Adobe® Reader® and Adobe Acrobat products.
• Productivity - Enables users to easily move between PDF and fully-formatted and editable formats, such as Microsoft® Word™ and Excel®, Corel® WordPerfect™ and rich text format (RTF) files; Publishes content to Internet Podcasts by converting PDF documents to human sounding audio files with RealSpeak™.

"Our PDF products are designed to provide business users with a choice when it comes to PDF," said Robert Weideman, senior vice president of marketing, Productivity Applications Division, Nuance. "And while the financial savings that PDF Converter Professional delivers makes it a compelling choice, the real savings come in the innovative business-centric features that save hours of effort nearly every day." Originally developed in cooperation with Microsoft, Nuance's PDF family - including PDF Converter Professional, PDF Converter and PDF Create! - has earned the reputation as the Better PDF for Business™ solution with the performance and price needed to put PDF on every business desktop. PDF Converter Professional has won accolades for the technical quality of its PDF implementation, providing organizations such as Lockheed Martin Space Systems, The National Institute of Health, Volkswagen and Wells Fargo with affordable PDF solutions that are completely compatible with free Adobe Reader on Windows®, Mac® and other platforms.

"PDF Converter Professional 4 is absolutely the best PDF solution on the market and is an excellent value for the money," said Judy Schindler, Pharm. D., Peninsula Pharmacists Services, Inc. "No other product delivers the performance and the wealth of innovative features for the price."

PDF Converter Professional 4 delivers the features that matter most to office professionals

• Easier and Faster to Use
  The new release showcases a 100% new user interface, one that delivers significantly improved ease-of-use with a native look-and-feel for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista. The speed and accuracy improvements in the new release are also dramatic, including three times faster launch speed, 50 percent faster PDF page, more than 80 percent improvement in multi-page form filling and 46 percent improvement in PDF-to-Word conversion. New versions of the desktop utilities PDF Create! Assistant and PDF Converter Assistant are also included with PDF Converter Professional 4.
• PDF Innovations
  While Adobe, and now the International Standards Organization, publish the specifications for various PDF versions, Nuance leads in innovations that expand on what business users can do with PDF files. These innovations include FormTyper™, which instantly turns any PDF into a fill-able form; PDF-to-Word and -Excel conversion, complete with text, columns, tables and text; PDF-to-Audio, enabling PDF to be instantly published as human-sounding Podcasts; and pricing that enables "Better PDF for Business" to be placed on every business desktop.
• Embracing Standards
  The new release also embraces a range of open and industry standards, significantly improving its interoperability with other applications and expanding the usefulness of the product to more users and organizations. For example, the product now supports ISO 19005-1 PDF/A, the first formal public specification of PDF, expanding on the PDF specifications issued by Adobe. PDF Converter Professional 4 also creates XML Tagged PDF, needed for proper read-order with screen readers, supports reading PDF documents in real-time using RealSpeak, and is U.S. Section 508 compliant, a government requirement for enabling accessibility of applications to disabled users.
• Better Collaboration
  No other product enables users to work as seamlessly between PDF and editable document formats, including Microsoft Office and Corel WordPerfect. Combine that with direct open/save connectivity to Hummingbird® and Interwoven® content management systems, powerful print-with-comments features, PDF annotations and the ability to attach various other formats to PDF, and you have a solution that significantly improves the way people create and share business documents.
• More Robust, Fast PDF Creation
  Already up to three times faster at creating PDF documents when compared to alternatives, the new release has a new PDF Create! Assistant utility that supports batch processing of multiple files into PDF. The product supports creating PDF 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, and now PDF/A and Tagged PDF files. Named PDF Profiles are also supported, allowing users to use specific PDF settings - such as PDF/A, font embedding and security - with a simple pull-down selection.

Availability and Pricing

ScanSoft PDF Converter Professional 4 is $99.99 and is available immediately through Nuance and its global network of reseller partners. Volume discounts and maintenance and support options are available for all products through the ScanSoft Open License Program. The product supports Microsoft Office 2003, XP, 2000 and 97, on Microsoft Windows XP, 2000 and 98. Support for Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Windows Vista will be available when they are released in early 2007. Nuance also offers the ScanSoft PDF Create! 4 and PDF Converter 4 desktop utilities, each for $49. For additional information on all products, features, pricing and volume licensing programs, please visit Nuance.com or call (1) 800-443-7077.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN) is the 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 Nuance.com.

Trademark reference: Nuance, the Nuance logo, Better PDF for Business, FormTyper, RealSpeak and ScanSoft are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe, Acrobat and Reader are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks refernced herein are the property 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 Nuance'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.