Foothill Ranch, Calif., (September 30, 2003) – Sound Advantage, LLC announced today the restructuring and renaming of the company to Applied Voice and Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST), reflecting the company’s expanded focus on bringing to market the core technologies required for effective and powerful unified communications solutions. Concurrent with the name change, the company announced that it had completed the acquisition of the CallXpress® voicemail and unified messaging product line from Captaris, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAPA) and that it is preparing to launch its next-generation speech application, Seneca™ in the fourth quarter of 2003.

“The renaming of our company to AVST and the acquisition of the CallXpress product line marks a major milestone in company’s history,” said Hardy Myers, President of Sound Advantage. “The synergy that exists between CallXpress and our proven speech-enabled technology provides us with an unparalleled unified communications solution for businesses of all sizes.”

The CallXpress acquisition is part of the company’s strategic business plan to expand both its technology offerings and customer base and positions AVST to take a leading role in the burgeoning unified communications market. The acquisition includes the retention of key products, technology, employees, office facilities in Bellevue, WA and a world-class engineering lab for research and development activities.

“We plan to leverage the expertise of the CallXpress and Sound Advantage engineering teams to integrate CallXpress with our next generation speech-enabled application, Seneca. The combined solution will provide superior voicemail, unified messaging, unified communications and speech technology to our current and prospective customers,” added Myers.

AVST plans to incorporate its existing and future speech recognition applications into the CallXpress product line and will also continue to sell its speech products separately. Under the terms of the agreement, Captaris will retain a 10% equity stake in the newly formed company.

The newly integrated AVST software solutions will enable users to access their company’s communications infrastructure including voice mail, email, and fax messages from any voice or data device – desktop, laptop, PDA, wired phone or cell phone - either via a touch-tone or speech interface. The ability to check messages, anywhere, anytime, greatly increases productivity and, more importantly, enables customers to make the connections they need faster.

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Media Contacts:
Kerry Fedro
Lages & Associates
949.453.8080
kerry@lages.com

About AVST
Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) is a leading developer of Unified Communications solutions with over 15 million users relying on its products and services to maximize their productivity. With three decades of innovation excellence, AVST is solely focused on delivering communications solutions that increase individual, group and enterprise productivity. Its flagship Unified Communications platform, CallXpress®, offers best in class interoperability, scalability and resiliency while delivering advanced call processing, voicemail, unified messaging, personal assistant, fax, speech and notification capabilities. With CallXpress, an organization can uniquely protect and extend its existing IT and telephony infrastructure investments — now and into the future.

Headquartered in Orange County, Calif., AVST maintains facilities in Seattle, Wash. and the United Kingdom and has remote sales offices throughout the United States. AVST's Unified Communications solutions are sold and supported internationally by an extensive network of resellers and OEM partners. For more information contact Denny Michael, Vice President of Marketing, at 949-699-2300 or access the company's website at www.avst.com.