WORDPERFECT CORPORATION AND INDUSTRY LEADERS CO-DEVELOP SPEECH RECOGNITION
API FOR WINDOWS

Committee Formed to Bring Fully Integrated, Speech-Enabled Applications to
Users

OREM, Utah--June 22, 1994--WordPerfect Corporation today announced that it
has teamed with leading speech and application developers to define a
common speech recognition Application Program Interface (API) for
Windows.

The participating companies include Dragon Systems Inc., IBM, Kolvox
Communications Inc., Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc., Lemout & Hauspie
Speech Products, Philips Dictation Systems, Novell Inc. and WordPerfect
Corporation. These companies comprise the Speech Recognition API Committee
which is dedicated to jointly developing this open standard API.

This open standard will allow the participating companies and other
industry developers to seamlessly integrate speech recognition technology
into their Windows applications, and have their applications work with
speech recognizer engines from different companies.

"When vendors truly commit to writing to open industry standards, the
issues of compatibility and interoperability will disappear for end
users," said Mark Calkins, vice president of product and strategic
marketing for WordPerfect Corporation. "Speech recognition will become a
standard productivity tool that will allow users to enter task directions
verbally and even create text and data by speaking into their computer
instead of typing or using a mouse."

WordPerfect Corporation's usability studies have shown that speech
recognition needs to be integrated directly into the application to
provide an intuitive, natural user interface. Several companies are now
providing add-on software which attempts to link a speech recognizer
engine to an application. The resulting user interface, though an
improvement, is not fully integrated into the application, and does not
allow access to all application features. With the Speech Recognition API,
speech-enabled applications will provide users with a consistent user
interface, and support features and interactions that can be done more
easily and efficiently by voice rather than by keyboard or by mouse.

"Having a well-defined standard is absolutely mandatory to make speech a
ubiquitous user interface," said Calkins.

These speech-enabled applications will greatly benefit users, especially in
the health care and legal fields. Integrating speech recognition
technology into personal computers will greatly increase productivity,
which saves professionals time and money.

The Speech Recognition API will support continuous and discrete command and
control speech capabilities, as well as continuous and discrete dictation
capabilities for inputting of text and data. Discrete command and control
allows the user to give separate individual voice commands such as "File
Print," "Five Copies," "OK." Continuous command and control allows a
person to use natural language input such as "print five copies of this
document." Discrete dictation requires the user to pause briefly between
each word, and the word is immediately inserted into the application.
Continuous dictation does not require pauses between words for insertion
of data.

"The Speech Recognition API will allow us to select the speech recognition
engine and applications which best meet our clients' needs," said Alex
Redlich of Esquire Communications Ltd. in New York, a company that
specializes in litigation support services.

WordPerfect Corporation will offer the new Speech Recognition API with its
PerfectFit Technology. This technology is the basis for all WordPerfect
Corporation Windows applications and is available to third-party
developers in WordPerfect Corporation's PerfectFit Software Developers Kit
(SDK). Using the tools in PerfectFit Technology, developers can achieve
the same level of integration and intuitive user interface as WordPerfect
Corporation provides in its Windows applications. The Speech Recognition
API will be added to the PerfectFit SDK in fourth quarter 1994.

With the inclusion of the Speech Recognition API in PerfectFit Technology,
the company's Windows applications are expected to be speech-enabled by
early 1995. All members of the committee are committed to developing
products that are compliant with the Speech Recognition API and expect to
have them ready within a year.

WordPerfect Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing business,
workgroup, consumer and electronic publishing software. Driven by its
vision of helping the world communicate, the company develops software for
people to process, share, present and distribute information. The company
is widely recognized for its multilingual and cross-platform software
solutions and is the industry's premier provider of customer support.
Founded in 1979, the company markets software in 28 languages and in 117
countries. Through its merger with Novell, expected to be completed by
mid-summer, WordPerfect will take a leadership role in developing network
applications.

WordPerfect Corp
1555 N. Technology Way
Orem, UT 84057-2399
801-225-5000,  fax 801-228-5077

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