Coleg Glan Hafren, Cardiff Tertiary College, Chooses PDF Converter Professional from Nuance to Replace Adobe Acrobat

PDF Converter Professional increases teaching efficiency and enhances the learning experience at leading technology college

London, UK, 5 March, 2007 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN), a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today announced that high performance, accurate conversion, and platform stability were three of the reasons why Coleg Glan Hafren, Cardiff Tertiary College, has selected ScanSoft® PDF Converter Professional to replace Adobe® Acrobat® as its PDF creation and conversion solution. PDF Converter Professional was supplied by Inqology.

With facilities to accommodate 13,000 students, the college receives hundreds of teaching and training documents in PDF format each year. Some of these documents can contain up to 200 pages. From these, the college’s lecturers must extract the most relevant material to present as the curriculum requires. By only keeping material that is needed for the course, and converting it into PDFs, the college saves on server space and reduces bandwidth capacity issues. Additionally, many students studying from home on vocational courses use a ‘dial up’ connection to download materials; sending them PDF files takes less time to download, and hence prevents long – and costly – call charges.

The college’s former document conversion solution struggled to accurately convert the college’s high volume of teaching materials. The college took the decision to assess the alternative PDF solutions available. It sought a solution that could convert documents quickly and accurately, and could easily manage graphic-rich and complicated documents such as training manuals. Having assessed the products available, the college decided that open source software was too cumbersome to use, while other boxed products were considered too expensive.

Commenting on the college’s use of PDF Converter Professional, David Newman, the Learning Technology and Network Manager at Coleg Glan Hafren, said: “PDF Converter Professional brings real productivity benefits to the college. It’s powerful, easy to use and has proved it can cope effortlessly with all of the tasks that we’ve set it. He added: “Of all the products we assessed, PDF Converter Professional proved to be the best alternative to Adobe Acrobat.”

The software is currently used by the College’s lecturers, but in the future it is likely that students studying 3D and Multimedia Design courses will also have access to it. David Newman recently demonstrated PDF Converter Professional to a larger group of lecturers, and they were immediately impressed with its performance and ease of use.

ScanSoft PDF Converter Professional 4 is a major upgrade to what has become the world's best-selling PDF alternative to Adobe Acrobat. PDF Converter Professional 4 provides business users with all of the features they require - PDF creation, conversion, editing and form filling - with innovations not available in other PDF products. With a price that is one-third that of Adobe Acrobat, PDF Converter Professional 4 delivers the affordability needed to put PDF on every business desktop.

Commenting on the college’s decision to deploy PDF Converter Professional, Angela Capon, Nuance UK & Ireland marketing manager said: “The application at Coleg Glan Hafren, is typical of the many public and private sector companies that are choosing our PDF solution over competitor products. Since its introduction, PDF Converter Professional has become the leading PDF alternative to Adobe Acrobat, with more than one million copies sold to individuals and businesses worldwide. With PDF Converter Professional 4, Nuance expands the technical and performance excellence of the product, and adds a wealth of innovative new features that allow users to do more with PDF than ever before. The result is a product that truly delivers "Better PDF for Business".”

Availability and Pricing

ScanSoft PDF Converter Professional 4 is £69.99 and is available immediately through Nuance and its global network of reseller partners. Volume discounts and maintenance and support options are available for all products through the Nuance Diamond License Program. The product supports Microsoft Office 2003, XP, 2000 and 97, on Microsoft Windows XP (32- and 64-bit) and 2000. Support for Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Windows Vista will be available when they are released in early 2007. Nuance also offers the ScanSoft PDF Create! 4 and PDF Converter 4 desktop utilities, each for £39.99. For additional information on all products, features, pricing and volume licensing programs, please visit www.Nuance.co.uk

About Nuance

Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN) is the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit Nuance.com.