STAMFORD, Conn., September 17, 2002 - MailCode, a subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI), today announced it has received a U.S. patent relating to the revolutionary Spell-It technology found in its Voice Sort mail sorting product. Voice Sort is a leading-edge software solution used nationwide in large corporate mail centers to eliminate the time consuming task of memorizing employee names or manual address look-up. Using advanced voice recognition, Voice Sort software automatically provides mail piece recipient location information from a database in response to the spoken commands of the operator. The operator then uses this information to quickly and accurately sort the mail piece. At the heart of Voice Sort, is the Spell-It technology. Unlike other voice recognition technologies that fail in certain circumstances, such as when one or more characters sound the same, or when one or more characters are missing, the Spell-It technology uses a proprietary methodology that accepts single spoken characters to provide significantly greater performance. From this verbal cue, the software accurately matches the information to likely matches in the directory. This advantage further reduces look-up time, and allows users to work around instances where there may be incomplete information on the incoming mail piece. "Together, Pitney Bowes and MailCode have a long history of innovation," stated Tim Morruzi, Director of Voice Technologies, MailCode. "More than ever, our customers are seeking new ways to bring efficiency and gains in productivity to the mail center. Additional applications are currently being utilized by USPS to sort manual mail. Custom applications are available as necessary for any manual sort against a database. Patenting this technology is further proof of our commitment to deliver customer value by providing leading-edge, global, integrated mail and document management solutions." Background In mail centers, the manual look-up of recipient information during the incoming mail delivery process is slow and cumbersome, which equates to increased man-hours and lost time. Meeting delivery service levels can be challenging if long-term employees are out or if turnover exists. Voice Sort allows mail center staff the ability to achieve look-up rates up to 600 pieces per hour. Productivity reports will allow mail centers to pinpoint where look-up mail exists and put corrective actions in place to reduce overall look-up mail. Voice Sort can be used as a stand-alone system or as an integrated solution with the Olympus II series of MLOCR sorters. Members of the Spell-It engineering team who were granted the patent include; Chris Baker, President; Peter Baker, Director of Software Engineering; Cortland Starrett, Manager of Software Engineering/Voice; Alexander Moon, Senior Software Engineer; Jia Xu, Software Engineer and Eric Auberry, Software Project Engineer. MailCode, Inc., a world leader in commercial and postal mixed mail processing solutions, has become the fastest growing MLOCR sorting systems manufacturer in the world through the development of innovative "solutions" technology. Pitney Bowes Inc. is a $4 billion global provider of integrated mail, messaging and document management solutions headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. The company serves over 2 million businesses of all sizes through dealer and direct operations. More information about Voice Sort can be found at www.pitneybowes.com.