Autonomy Acquires Acclaimed Speech Recognition Company SoftSound; Autonomy To Enable the Next-Generation of Voice-Based Products.

Business and Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2000

Autonomy Corporation plc today announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Cambridge-based speech recognition company SoftSound Ltd., details of the transaction have not been disclosed.

Spun out of Cambridge University in 1995, SoftSound produces advanced speech recognition technology that has received industry accolades in both the UK and US, the University will retain a stake in SoftSound. The combination of SoftSound's speech technology with Autonomy's advanced pattern recognition technology will deliver infrastructure products to enable voice and speech records to be managed in a completely automatic way. By using Autonomy's technology, for the first time, speech can be handled in the same way and alongside text, it can be automatically linked, categorised and searched, capturing and utilising valuable communication threads.

Dr Mike Lynch, Chief Executive Officer, of Autonomy commented: "Digital communication is the foundation of new economy and it's the emails and voicemails which are the currency of this economy. We believe that this acquisition will allow Autonomy to bring together speech and text and to provide the building blocks on which the new economy is built."

SoftSound has developed a complete system that applies a fast speaker-independent speech recognition system to access the information in audio streams such as news broadcasts or archives. SoftSound technology drastically reduces the required data rate of high quality audio and speech for extremely low bandwidth situations and allows audio to be recognized and processed virtually instantaneously. By combining this with Autonomy's technology, new applications and products for speech and audio processing will be made possible as will new ways of interaction with machines and handheld devices including WAP, broadband and voice over IP. Autonomy's first commercial products utilizing SoftSound's technology are scheduled for release towards the end of 2000.

SoftSound owns two global patents in speech recognition and analysis techniques and its technology has been highly commended by academic and industry bodies including: TREC (the world-respected Text Retrieval Conference) where SoftSound's technology pioneered the creation of a Spoken Document Retrieval category where speech recognition technologies are compared and benchmarked. In the US, SoftSound has been a successful participant in the US defense industry's DARPA Continuous Speech Recognition Evaluations since 1992, where the technology is objectively compared against all best-of-breed comparisons. SoftSound was one of very few non-US companies invited to participate in this ongoing industry benchmarking project.

Dr Mike Lynch, Chief Executive Officer, of Autonomy commented: "Having explored other options within the speech field, we concluded that the acquisition of SoftSound gave us ownership of an advanced technology at an extremely competitive market rate. This deal opens up a whole new market for Autonomy to show the value and intelligence its technology can bring by automating the management and delivery of voice and speech across multiple potential applications."

Tony Robinson, aged 37, founded SoftSound in 1995 with Aidan Paul; Dr Robinson will take the position of Technical Director of Autonomy's speech subsidiary and will sit on the Board alongside representatives from Autonomy. Dr Robinson has an extensive background in academic research into signal processing and classification at Cambridge University and has published over 100 research journals covering speech, language and audio processing. He has held many research fellowships, including Cambridge's prestigious SERC Advanced Research Fellowship. Dr Robinson was also an Invited Researcher, at NTT's Research Laboratories in Tokyo. Dr Robinson obtained a degree in Natural Sciences in Cambridge in 1984 and a PhD in Dynamic Error Propagation Networks in 1989.

Aidan Paul Mr. Paul was formerly the Director of Corporate Finance for Technology and Telecommunications at Robert Fleming in London. He held previous positions at the PA Consulting Group, BICC, and GEC in consulting, product planning and design, communications, and optical and medical electronics. He received an honors degree in Electronic Engineering from Bristol University. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Management Accountant.

NOTE:

With the exception of historical information, the matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include, among others, dependence on core technology; limited operating history; fluctuations in quarterly results; dependence on new product development; rapid technological and market change; reliance on sales by others; management of growth; dependence on key personnel; rapid expansion; technology risks; volatility of stock price; growth of the Internet; financial risk management; and future growth subject to risks.

These factors and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are also discussed in the company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including Autonomy's Registration Statement on Form F-1, File no. 333-11804.