Best Speech Product Awards Go to SpeechWorks; SpeechWorks 6.5 and Speechify Receive Product of the Year Awards From Industry Magazines.

Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 21, 2001

SpeechWorks International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPWX), a market leader in the telephony-based speech technology industry, today announced that its premier product offerings, SpeechWorks(R) 6.5 and Speechify(TM) have won Product of the Year Awards from Communications Solutions and Customer Inter@ction Solutions respectively.

"TMC is committed to uncovering technologies which advance the communication capacity of enterprises," noted Richard Tehrani, president and group editor-in-chief at TMC. "SpeechWorks deserves recognition as one of the companies at the vanguard of the movement to develop speech applications which serve end users well, while generating significant return on investment for the companies that employ them."

Talking About SpeechWorks 6.5

SpeechWorks 6.5, the Company's core speech recognition product, boasts several significant enhancements from its previous version including improved accuracy, Natural Language Tools and "plug-and-play," DialogModules(TM), patented by SpeechWorks, that allow for speaker verification, address collection and voice enrollment.

SpeechWorks 6.5 improved its out-of-box core recognition accuracy by an average of 10-15% over the previous version. SpeechWorks 6.5 accuracy improvements have been optimized to allow applications to understand callers in a variety of environments, such as on cell phones and in airports. With the additional functionality afforded by its DialogModules, version 6.5 provides faster time-to-deployment.

End users benefit from improved natural language capability. SpeechWorks' Natural Language Tools empower developers with an integrated, easy-to-use graphical toolkit consisting of a Grammar Editor, Vocabulary Editor and Pronunciation Editor. The Grammar Editor lets developers program speech applications to understand a variety of sentence structures with the same meaning, such as, "I want to buy it," or, "Yes, I would like to purchase it."

Speechify 1.0--The Way Speech Should Sound

Speechify 1.0, one of SpeechWorks' text-to-speech (TTS) products, is the first to capitalize on 30 years of AT&T Labs research developing human sounding speech with sophisticated language analysis capability. The result is a next-generation TTS engine that sets the standard for natural voice tone and intelligibility. Speechify enhances the caller experience and allows companies to reduce the costs and development time associated with hiring voice talent to record prompts or spoken responses.

With Speechify, companies can provide personalized or fast-changing information to callers. Speechify powers AOL by Phone(SM) and Yahoo! by Phone, allowing users to have e-mail messages read to them in a clear, natural sounding voice. In phone applications where there is too much content to pre-record effectively, such as weather, directions and account information, Speechify translates the text into speech.

"SpeechWorks has succeeded in developing a suite of voice products that provide incredible value to our customers and, in turn, a delightful experience for end users," said Steve Chambers, vice president of worldwide marketing. "Recognition from these two TMC publications, whose readership is comprised of the same developers and CRM managers SpeechWorks serves, is a testament to our customer commitment to deliver best-in-class products and services."

The Products of the Year Awards are featured in the January 2001 issues of both Communications Solutions and Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazines and can also be viewed online at http://www.tmcnet.com/comsol/00cspoty.htm (Communications Solutions) and http://www.tmcnet.com/cis/00cispoty.htm (Customer Inter@ction Solutions).

About SpeechWorks

Organizations worldwide rely on SpeechWorks (NASDAQ: SPWX) to delight their callers and provide them with a new level of service over the phone. Complementing the self-service model of e-business, SpeechWorks(R) speech recognition solutions, including the revolutionary SpeechSite(TM) product and Speechify(TM) text-to-speech engine, let customers direct their calls, obtain information and complete transactions automatically, simply by speaking naturally over any phone, anytime.

SpeechWorks customers include some of the world's most sophisticated customer service innovators such as America Online, Thrifty, FedEx, HeyAnita, Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group and United Airlines. The Company offers the SpeechWorks Here(TM) Guarantee, the industry's only customer results program with a money-back guarantee. SpeechWorks strategic partners include leading corporations such as AT&T, Dialogic, an Intel company, InterVoice-Brite and Net2Phone.

SpeechWorks is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and has offices around the world. To experience the power of SpeechWorks, call 1.888.SAY.DEMO. For additional information, call 617.428.4444 or visit http://www.speechworks.com.

SpeechWorks, Speechify, SpeechWorks Here, DialogModules and SpeechSite are trademarks or registered trademarks of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.