Voice Recognition Breaking News

EPOS PARTNERS WITH LERNOUT & HAUSPIE TO INTEGRATE L&H™ REALSPEAK™ TEXT-TO-SPEECH INTO ITS TELEPHONY SOLUTIONS

L&H Licensing Agreement Delivers Industry Standard Technology for EPOS FirstLine Encore™ Communications Platform

Auburn, Ala., and Burlington, Mass. -- September 20, 2001 -- EPOS Corporation, a provider of interactive voice and Web self-service solutions, and Lernout and Hauspie, a world leader in speech and language technology, products and services, today announced they have signed a licensing agreement to offer L&H™ RealSpeak™ as part of EPOS' award-winning FirstLine Encore™ communications platform. All EPOS solutions begin with FirstLine EncoreTM, a multi-media transaction processing system that facilitates communication via telephone, web, kiosk, or wireless technology.

L&H™ RealSpeak™ is the industry standard in text-to-speech technology (TTS) and will provide EPOS with the highest quality of voice for its telephony solutions. In addition to delivering the best in text-to-speech (TTS) technology, L&H™ RealSpeak™ technology will cost-effectively and efficiently provide spoken responses required for the dial-in banking, reservations, and address verification applications used in FirstLine Encore. Through this integration, FirstLine Encore will now have the ability to verbally respond to requests in a clear, natural-sounding synthetic voice.

"More than two years ago L&H set the industry standard for text-to-speech technology, and partnerships with companies like EPOS afford us the opportunity to reach a broader base of users with our award-winning technology," said Pam Ravesi, Senior Director of Product Management of L&H's Speech and Language Technologies Division. "With L&H's RealSpeak, EPOS' suite of FirstLine Encore solutions will offer customers a high quality voice solution that enhances end-user service, as well as reduces costs."

"Adding L&H's RealSpeak to our FirstLine Encore communications platform is a major stride in the quality of our telephony solutions at EPOS," stated Mark Lindsey, VP of Sales and Marketing for EPOS. "This business solution is not only cost effective for our customers, but will also provide voice-enabled solutions to all users of the communications platform 'round the clock, seven days a week."

L&H™ RealSpeak™ reads aloud any text with a human-like voice, and represents the highest quality of TTS in terms of voice quality, scalability, and intelligibility available today. Among other things, L&H™ RealSpeak™ will be used in applications with rapidly changing data or large quantities of information at EPOS.

About L&H™ RealSpeak™

L&H™ RealSpeak™ is Lernout & Hauspie's advanced text-to-speech technology (TTS) that can generate nearly human-sounding synthesized speech. It is used in a wide variety of advanced applications, from the creation of voice portals to speech-enabled virtual newscasters. Typical markets for deploying L&H™ RealSpeak™ include: banking, financial, telecommunications, call center and media industries. L&H™ RealSpeak™ technology supports over 6 operating systems and is currently available in the following 18 languages: US and UK English, German, French, Dutch & Belgian Dutch, Castilian and Mexican Spanish, Italian, European and Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Cantonese & Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. The L&H™ RealSpeak™ TTS engine has already received a number of industry awards in recognition of its superior technology and capabilities. The engine won in the Web software category of the Computing Awards for Excellence 2000 run by VNU Business Publications, and the "Best Speech Technology" category at Voice on the Net Europe '99. Other awards include SpeechTEK's "Peak Performance Awards," and the "Best of CTI Expo Spring 1999" Award.

About Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products

L&H is a global leader in advanced speech and language solutions. L&H is making the speech user interface (SUI), the keystone of simple, convenient interaction between humans and technology, and is using advanced translation technology to break down language barriers. L&H provides a wide range of offerings, including customized solutions for corporations; core speech technologies marketed to OEMs; end user applications for continuous speech products; and document creation, human and machine translation services, Internet translation offerings, and linguistic tools. L&H's products and services originate in the following four basic areas: automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), digital speech and music compression (SMC) and text-to-text (translation). For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the World Wide Web at www.lhsl.com.

About EPOS Corporation

EPOS Corporation, with headquarters in Auburn, Alabama, is a leading provider of automated self-service solutions that facilitate communications via phone, Internet, wireless and PDA devices, and kiosk. EPOS' primary solutions include interactive voice response and call center automation. The company's products and services empower organizations to build stronger relationships and deliver information through quality interactions with customers and employees. EPOS provides 24/7 anytime, anywhere access to information with the choice of a customer-premise solution or an off-premise Application Service Provider (ASP) solution. With more than 3,000 installations worldwide, EPOS has delivered state-of-the-art solutions for utilities, state and local governments, higher education, human resource departments, call centers, and distributors. EPOS' customers include the State of Georgia Department of Labor, Consolidated Edison, The University of Ohio, and Sola Optical. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.epos.com.

This Press Release contains forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties, including statements about L&H's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Readers are cautioned that forward looking statements include known and unknown risks, including uncertainty of new product development, the risk that newly introduced products may contain undetected errors or defects or otherwise not perform as anticipated, early state of development of the speech, language and medical information technology markets, the ability of L&H's customers to successfully integrate and commercialize L&H's technology, the uncertainties associated with the Company's recent Chapter 11 filings in the US and related proceedings in Belgium, the retention of key technical and other personnel, currency and other risks related to international operations, rapid technological change and intense competition, as well as other risks set forth in L&H's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this Press Release.

L&H and RealSpeak are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. or its affiliates, in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names or trademarks referenced herein are trademarks of their respective owners.