SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 2002--Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK) and WexTech Systems, Inc., today announced that Autodesk will expand its use of WexTech Systems, Inc.'s AnswerWorks natural language processing system to more of its product line. AnswerWorks, a question-answering engine for adding an easy-to-use, natural-language interface to both local help systems and Web-based knowledge repositories, allows Autodesk customers to pose questions that are phrased in everyday language. AnswerWorks technology provides Autodesk users with faster, easier, and more accurate access to customer support information in Autodesk's help and support solutions systems.

"We've used AnswerWorks for two years in our AutoCAD products and its ability to help customers find answers and support in multiple languages has compelled us to extend our use of AnswerWorks to other Autodesk products and locales," said Billy Hinners, senior director of AutoCAD Engineering at Autodesk. "In addition to the AnswerWorks' intuitive functionality, WexTech's service and support has been excellent. They've been with us every step of the way to help integrate AnswerWorks into our help and support systems."

AnswerWorks complements Autodesk's customer centricity by allowing product development teams to create smarter help systems that make it easier for users to find the information they need. AnswerWorks' index-building engine analyzes text and creates a linguistic image describing the content of every sentence, storing words in root form along with information regarding each word's context. AnswerWorks' automatic handling of synonyms, morphology, and disambiguation (the changes in a word's meaning depending on its use in a sentence) are among the most striking differences between AnswerWorks and full-text or keyword searches. Once AnswerWorks has been deployed, its analytics allow ready identification of the issues causing users the most difficulty. And unlike other natural language query systems, AnswerWorks' tools provide a large degree of automation, simplifying update and maintenance.

"WexTech has a small but very elite group of clients," says Steve Wexler, WexTech's founder and CEO. "We're able to enjoy the luxury of only working with companies that provide the very best electronic performance support systems. Autodesk is doing some truly groundbreaking work in making sure its users have the information they need, when they need it. It's a huge shot in the arm to see our technology used as effectively and successfully as it has been inside of Autodesk products."

AnswerWorks currently supports local and server-based Help systems developed and deployed in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish, with additional language support under development.

About WexTech Systems, Inc.

WexTech Systems, Inc. was founded in 1985 and provided microcomputer training and consulting services for Fortune 500 companies. Early adopters of Microsoft Windows, WexTech's expertise in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel prompted Microsoft to hire WexTech to write Using WordBasic in 1990, and to develop all the templates for Microsoft Word 2.0 the following year, as well as manage the Word and Excel tracks of the Microsoft tools developers' conference. Also in 1991, WexTech released Doc-To-Help, the world's first commercial Help authoring tool. WexTech's expertise was again called upon by Microsoft in 1998 to write the Official Microsoft HTML Help Authoring Kit. ¶ In 1996, WexTech formed a strategic partnership with Knexys Knowledge Exchange Systems, a Belgian linguistic technology R&D company. The fruits of this relationship have manifested in the AnswerWorks(R) brand of products, used by many leaders in self-help and e-support, including Intuit, Autodesk, and Knowledge Impact. AnswerWorks can be seen in action at www.freeanswers.com. For more information on WexTech Systems, Inc. visit www.wextech.com.

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