This week for “A Brief History On” we dive into the world of dictation software. Nuance Communications, Inc. is a leader in voice recognition and OCR (optical character recognition) software. Nuance, as it is known today, is the result of numerous mergers and acquisitions over the years. There are three main names you should be familiar with in the forming of the company: Visioneer, ScanSoft, and Nuance Communications.
I Thought This Was About Nuance?
On January 13, 1976 MIT graduate Raymond Kurzweil unveiled the first omni-font OCR system. He sold his company, Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. to Xerox in 1980. Later on, its name was changed to ScanSoft.
In 1992, a company called Visioneer, Inc. was founded. Quickly it became a leader in consumer imaging hardware and software. They found added success with their document scanning and organizing software PaperPort in 1998. Visioneer then decided to sell its hardware division and stick to software development.
Resistance Is Fut
ile
In 1999, Visioneer acquired ScanSoft and adopted ScanSoft’s name. Shortly thereafter, ScanSoft acquired Caere Corp. (who had developed OmniPage, the acclaimed OCR program). I remember when I was a teenager and first seeing OmniPage in action at the computer shop I worked at part-time. We scanned a document and the image was processed by the program. It identified the letters and turned the static image into an editable file! We then scanned some hand-written notes, and OmniPage attempted to decipher them as well with limited success—even that was amazing to us. I mean, c’mon! it was hand-written.
Meanwhile, the acquisitions continued. In 2001, ScanSoft acquired Lernout & Hauspie, which owned Dragon Systems, among others. This acquisition moved ScanSoft from primarily desktop imaging software into the realm of speech recognition. This made ScanSoft a direct competitor with Nuance Communications.
1 + 1 = 1
Nuance Communications (minus the Inc.) was a spin-off from SRI’s STAR Lab back in ’94. This off-shoot was established to create commercial large-scale speech applications. When ScanSoft entered the speech recognition software industry, Nuance already had established itself as the forefront contender. This didn’t stop ScanSoft, however, thanks to the powerful program Dragon Naturally Speaking. The competition between the two continued over the years until mid-September of 2005 when ScanSoft acquired and merged with Nuance. Once again, the company decided to keep the name of the one it absorbed and became Nuance Communications, Inc.
Today, Nuance boasts a wide range of products designed to help consumers streamline their written and spoken words. One of the most successful programs has been Dragon Naturally Speaking. Scheduled to be released toward the end of the month is Dragon’s latest version (version 11). Just like its predecessors, it boasts 99% accuracy out of the box and since most people speak over 120 words per minute but only type around 40, it’s a huge time saver. I just wish I had it while typing this up. Hmm, I wonder if I could convince my boss I need it for “research”…
enjoy.
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