ABBYY FineReader 5.0 Pro Beats New ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 11 in ZDNet Test
ZDNet awards "Best Buy" to ABBYY FineReader 5.0 over the US OCR market share leader ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 11

Fremont, Calif. (July 25, 2001) — ABBYY, a world leader in document recognition and linguistic technologies, today announced its FineReader 5.0 received the "Best Buy" award from ZDNet, the leading website for people who want to learn about, use and buy technology. In a test held by ZDNet, FineReader 5.0 Pro competed with the new version of ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 11, the U.S. OCR market share leader. In his review, ZDNet's Ed Mendelson said, "FineReader 5.0 Pro jumps from unknown to leader of the OCR pack both in value and power." This Best Buy award is the most recent addition to the extensive portfolio of over 45 awards, which FineReader has won in comparative OCR tests and evaluations by leading publications around the world.

According to Mendelson, OmniPage Pro ranks as the best-known OCR package on the U.S. market. However, the situation is changing. "ABBYY's FineReader 5.0 Pro is threatening to shoulder it [OmniPage] aside," said Mendelson in his review of OmniPage Pro 11. He also commented, "?this low-priced powerhouse [FineReader Pro] from a Russian vendor may make you switch from whatever OCR package you're using now."

Confident that FineReader 5.0 would outperform the new version of OmniPage Pro, Dean Tang, President of ABBYY USA, said, "We were excited about submitting FineReader 5.0 for ZDNet's testing against the ScanSoft product, even though we hadn't yet seen the new OmniPage. We simply have superior technology."

To read the full article, visit ZDNet at www.zdnet.com/products/stories/overview/0,8826,526318,00.html. For additional information on ABBYY or its FineReader products visit the company's web site at www.abbyy.com.

About ABBYY USA
ABBYY USA is a member of the ABBYY Group that publishes and distributes ABBYY products in North America. ABBYY (ABBYY Software House) specializes in the development of software for optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), linguistics, semantics and electronic lexicography. Leading products from ABBYY include the FineReader line of OCR/ICR/OMR software as well as FineReader development tools, which allow developers to integrate OCR into their solutions. Companies that license ABBYY OCR/ICR technologies include Siemens Nixdorf, Samsung Electronics, C-Technologies, Sumitomo Electric Systems, L&H/Kurzweil, Arkenstone, Banctec (Japan), Visionshape, Acer, Microtek, OTG Software, Grantsmart, Mustek, Umax, NewSoft, Primax and Jet Fax. For more information about ABBYY, visit its Web site at www.abbyy.com or contact ABBYY USA, 46560 Fremont Blvd, Suite 105, Fremont, CA 94538. Phone: (510) 226-6717. Fax: (510) 226-6069. E-mail: info@abbyyusa.com

ABBYYY and FineReader are registered trademarks of ABBYY Software House. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby recognized.