ABBYY LICENSES FINE READER OCR ENGINE TO MICROTEK

Microtek To Develop Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Package for Scanners Using Software Development Kit (SDK) From ABBYY Software House

Las Vegas, NV (November 13, 2000) ¡ ABBYY USA, the U.S. subsidiary of ABBYY Software House, Moscow, Russia, announced today an agreement to license its FineReader Engine to Microtek Lab, Redondo, California, which is a U.S. subsidiary of Microtek International, Inc. Under the agreement, Microtek is licensing a software development kit from ABBYY to create optical character recognition software for Microtek scanners. Microtek will develop customized programs that use ABBYY OCR engine components and bundle these programs with Microtek scanners.

The technology licensed to Microtek is the ABBYY FineReader Engine, which is a Software Development Kit (SDK) containing powerful functions and structures for Optical Character Recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR) and barcode recognition. OCR is used to analyze features printed by a machine. ICR is used to analyze features printed by hand. Microtek programmers will use the kit to integrate advanced OCR and barcode recognition technologies into his scanner applications via COM-style application Programming interface (API). The deal gives Microtek access to the same recognition kernel that is used in the ABBYY FineReader family of OCR software products.

Dramatic Improvements In OCR Technologies

The FineReader Engine is based on a perception technology developed by ABBYY Software House in Moscow from the principles of Integrity, Purposefulness and Adaptability (IPA-technology, patent pending). Living creatures recognize objects through IPA techniques. They propose a hypothesis and purposefully verify it. They also have the ability to adapt to new features, which means they can learn. After several years, the implementation of IPA-technology has increased the recognition accuracy for both high- and low-quality original documents. It doubles the recognition accuracy on poor quality documents compared to competing technologies. It also preserves formats and maintains tables and other images in the document.

ôThe decision to license the FineReader Engine for OCR integration into MicrotekÆs ScanWizard software was based on FineReaderÆs ability to deliver highly accurate, feature-rich optical character recognition functionality for both PC and Macintosh,ö said Benny Hsu, Chairman of Microtek International, Inc. ôABBYYÆs advanced recognition technology and unique expertise in linguistics and computer-based language analysis allows Microtek to continue to offer premium solutions for our users, who will now have the ability to OCR documents with both text, graphics and columns with extraordinary accuracy.ö

Presently, the licensing agreement with Microtek covers only the development of software for bundling with Microtek scanners. ôThe principal object of ABBYYÆs scientific research and software development is natural language, particularly with regard to how language is used in the technologies that embed the dialogue between humans and computers,ö said Sergey Andreyev, CEO, ABBYY Software House. ôOur key competency is developing effective technologies. Our partnership with Microtek allows us to bring quality products to market together.ö

There are many ways that the FineReader Engine can be integrated with into the design of new OCR/ICR related products, including products for mass distribution and for specialized applications. Fax-processors can be dedicated to the conversion of incoming facsimile messages into editable text. OCR technology can be tailored to archiving and document-processing applications, significantly reducing the time to complete these tasks. FineReader Engine components can be used to develop products for rapidly processing machine-readable forms, such as questionnaires, surveys and similar documents that are filled in by hand. The FineReader Engine is also powerful enough to develop practical ôreading systems,ö which can scan a page of a book, magazine or newspaper, analyze and recognize the text, and then read it aloud in a synthetic voice.

About MICROTEK
Microtek is a global leader in designing and manufacturing affordable desktop digital imaging products that help improve communications and efficiency. Known for its first-to-market scanning technology, Microtek continues to provide a wide range of desktop imaging solutions to users ranging from the mass market, to high-end professional desktop publishers, printers and pre-press service providers. Most recently, Microtek redefined the scanner category with the development of the first affordable, standalone scanning appliance, which operates totally independent of a computer. Founded in 1980 and headquartered in Redondo Beach, California, Microtek Lab, Inc. is a U.S. subsidiary of Microtek International, Inc. based in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The company has a strong global presence with major operations and distribution channels in 53 countries around the world. Microtek can be found on the Web at http://www.microtekusa.com .

About ABBYY USA
ABBYY USA is a member of the ABBYY Group, which 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 

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