Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications, Inc.Formerly| ScanSoft, Inc.

|

Type| Subsidiary
Industry| Software
Founded| 1992; 34 years ago (1992)
as Visioneer
Headquarters| Burlington, Massachusetts, U.S.

Key people

| Mark Benjamin (chairman and CEO)
Products| IVR, natural language understanding, OCR, speech synthesis, speech recognition, PDF, consulting, government contracts

Number of employees

| 6,500+ (2021)
Parent| Microsoft (2021-present)
Website| www.nuance.com

Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software.

Nuance merged with its competitor in the commercial large-scale speech application business, ScanSoft, in October 2005. ScanSoft was a Xerox spin-off that was bought in 1999 by Visioneer, a hardware and software scanner company, which adopted ScanSoft as the new merged company name. The original ScanSoft had its roots in Kurzweil Computer Products.

In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications. The deal is an all-cash transaction of $19.7 billion, including company debt, or $56 per share.[1] The acquisition was completed in March 2022.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Data breach
* 2 Solutions
* 2.1 ScanSoft origins
* 2.2 Partnership with Siri and Apple Inc.
* 2.3 Focus on health care
* 2.4 Acquisition by Microsoft
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## History

The Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory at SRI International began the journey that, in 1994, resulted in a spin-off company; Corona Corporation (later renamed to Nuance Communications [2]). Nuance Communications (NUAN) went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market in 1995. Nuance focused on commercializing advanced speech recognition technologies. Nuance was an early spinoff of SRI’s Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory, a world leader in audio processing, speech and speaker analytics and spoken language research. The technology that served as the foundation of Nuance’s speech recognition solution started at the STAR Lab and helped launch Nuance more than 20 years ago.[3]

In 1995, The SRI Language Modeling Toolkit (SRILM) was developed. This provides the tools to build and apply statistical language models (LMs), primarily for use in speech recognition, statistical tagging and segmentation, and machine translation.

In terms of commercialization of natural automated speech recognition, SRI’s natural language speech recognition software was the first to be deployed by a major corporation. In 1996, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., used Nuance’s speech recognition technology to allow customers to receive stock quotes over the telephone. One of the key features of the ‘Schwab Discount Brokerage system’, was the ability to recognize English words even when spoken by customers with accents.

In 1997, Nuance Communications developed the first large scale commercial dialog system for United Parcel Services (UPS). UPS used the voice recognition platform to handle very large numbers of inquiries about package status.

The company that would later merge with Nuance Communications started life as Visioneer, incorporated in 1992. In 1999, Visioneer acquired ScanSoft, Inc. (SSFT), and the combined company became known as ScanSoft. In September 2005, ScanSoft Inc. acquired and merged with Nuance Communications (NUAN), a natural language DOD-project spinoff from SRI International. The resulting company adopted the Nuance name. During the prior decade, the two companies competed in the commercial large-scale speech application business.[4]

### Data breach

Between 2014 and 2017, Nuance exposed over 45,000 patient records.[5]

## Solutions

* Customer service virtual assistants
* Speech recognition — for people
* Speech recognition — for business
* Speech recognition — for physicians
* Accessibility
* Power PDF
* Managed Print Services
* Transcription

### ScanSoft origins

In 1974, Raymond Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. to develop the first omni-font optical character-recognition system - a computer program capable of recognizing text written in any normal font. In 1980, Kurzweil sold his company to Xerox.[6] The company became known as Xerox Imaging Systems (XIS), and later ScanSoft. In March 1992, a new company called Visioneer, Inc. was founded to develop scanner hardware and software products, such as a sheetfed scanner called PaperMax[7] and the document management software PaperPort.[8] Visioneer eventually sold its hardware division to Primax Electronics, Ltd. in January 1999. Two months later, in March, Visioneer acquired ScanSoft from Xerox to form a new public company with ScanSoft as the new company-wide name. Prior to 2001, ScanSoft focused primarily on desktop imaging software such as TextBridge,[9] PaperPort and OmniPage. Beginning with the December 2001 acquisition of Lernout & Hauspie assets, the company moved into the speech recognition business and began to compete with Nuance. Lernout & Hauspie had acquired speech recognition company Dragon Systems in June 2001, shortly before becoming bankrupt in October.[10][11] Scansoft acquired speech recognition company SpeechWorks in 2003.[12]

### Partnership with Siri and Apple Inc.

In 2013, Nuance confirmed that its natural language processing algorithms supported Apple's Siri voice assistant.[13]

### Focus on health care

In 2019, Nuance spun off its automotive division as the company Cerence, allowing it to focus on health care applications.[14]

### Acquisition by Microsoft

On April 12, 2021, Microsoft announced that it will buy Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion, or $56 a share, a 22% increase over the previous closing price.[15][16] Nuance's CEO, Mark Benjamin, stayed with the company. This was Microsoft's second-biggest acquisition up to that point, after its purchase of LinkedIn for $24 billion (~$25.5 billion in 2024) in 2016.[17] Shortly after the deal, the Competition and Markets Authority, a UK regulatory body, stated it was looking into the deal on the basis of antitrust concerns.[18] In December 2021, it was reported that the deal would be approved by the European Union.[19] The acquisition was completed on March 4, 2022.[20]

In May 2023, Nuance announced an unspecified number of layoffs.[14]

## See also

* Caere Corporation, whom ScanSoft/Nuance acquired in 2000
* Optical character recognition
* DocuWare
* SharePoint

## References

1. ↑ "Report of unscheduled material events or corporate event » Microsoft 8K". 2021-04-12. https://microsoft.gcs-web.com/node/29236/html.
2. ↑ "75 Years of Innovation: Speech Recognition". April 26, 2020. https://www.sri.com/75-years-of-innovation/75-years-of-innovation-speech-recognition/.
3. ↑ "SRI International's STAR Laboratory". http://www.speech.sri.com/?_gl=1*187mq28*_gcl_au*MTE1OTQ0NDYwNS4xNzU1NjQ5MjU3.
4. ↑ "SCANSOFT, INC. (nuance Communications, Inc.)". https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102556/000095013505002723/b55051a3e425.htm.
5. ↑ "Shooting the Whistleblower? Defamation Suit Claims Nuance Communications Gave False Info to FBI, SEC, Retaliated Against Whistleblower". March 18, 2022. https://databreaches.net/2022/03/18/shooting-the-whistleblower-defamation-suit-claims-nuance-communications-gave-false-info-to-fbi-sec-retaliated-against-whistleblower/.
6. ↑ "Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc." Smithsonian Speech Synthesis History Project (SSSHP) 1986–2002
7. ↑ Flynn, Mary Kathleen; Wiener, Leonard (November 20, 1994). "Neat Gadgets to Drool Over". U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/941128/archive_013727_3.htm.
8. ↑ "PaperPort Guide". What is Nuance. 2024-08-10. https://whatisnuance.com/paperport-guide/.
9. ↑ "Nuance - TextBridge Pro 11". 2010-01-04. http://www.nuance.com/textbridge.
10. ↑ "Dragon Systems purchased by Lernout & Hauspie". New York Times. 2001-05-07. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/business/dragon-systems-sputters-after-belgian-suitor-fails.html?pagewanted=all.
11. ↑ "Goldman Is Cleared Over a Sale Gone Awry". New York Times. 2013-01-23. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/business/goldman-sachs-cleared-in-collapse-of-dragon-systems-sale.html?ref=business.
12. ↑ "Technology Briefing | Deals: Scansoft To Acquire Speechworks For $132 million". The New York Times. April 25, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/25/business/technology-briefing-deals-scansoft-to-acquire-speechworks-for-132-million.html.
13. ↑ Bostic, Kevin (May 30, 2013). "Nuance confirms its voice technology is behind Apple's Siri". https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/30/nuance-confirms-its-technology-is-behind-apples-siri.
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Aaron Pressman (May 20, 2023). "Layoffs hit Nuance after Microsoft acquisition". The Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/20/business/layoffs-hit-nuance-after-microsoft-acquisition/.
15. ↑ Kovach, Steve (2021-04-12). "Microsoft makes its second biggest acquisition, buys AI speech tech company Nuance for $19.7 billion" (in en). https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/microsoft-makes-its-second-biggest-acquisition-buys-ai-speech-tech-company-nuance-for-19-7-billion-1790336-2021-04-13.
16. ↑ Speed, Richard. "Microsoft digs deep for chatty AI specialist Nuance, bids $19.7bn to bolster healthcare chops" (in en). https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/12/microsoft_nuance/.
17. ↑ Murphy, Mike (April 11, 2021). "Microsoft in talks to buy Nuance Communications for around $16 billion: reports" (in en-US). https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-in-talks-to-buy-nuance-communications-for-around-16-billion-reports-11618174921.
18. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (2021-12-13). "UK's antitrust watchdog is taking a look at Microsoft-Nuance" (in en). https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/13/cma-microsoft-nuance/.
19. ↑ Chee, Foo Yun (2021-12-10). "EXCLUSIVE Microsoft's $16 billion Nuance bid set for EU antitrust approval -sources" (in en). Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-eu-regulators-set-okay-16-bln-microsoft-nuance-deal-sources-say-2021-12-10/.
20. ↑ Holt, K. (March 4, 2022). "Microsoft completes its $19.7 billion purchase of voice-tech company Nuance". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-nuance-communications-acquisition-closed-163905727.html.

## External links

* Official website
*     * Business data for Nuance Communications, Inc.:
* SEC filings

* Nuance eCopy PDF Pro Office.

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