Nuance Communications

Scansoft Incorporated is a (primarily) Belgian-based computer software technology company focusing on productivity software. Their worldwide headquarters is in Peabody, Massachusetts in the USA. ScanSoft is known in part for its voice-recognition suite Dragon Naturally Speaking (formerly Dragon Dictate). The other products in it's portfolio orientate around OCR and PDF technologies.

Company History

At the end of 2001, ScanSoft acquired Lernout & Hauspie's Speech and Language division for $39.5 million, following the latter's bankruptcy proceedings. Previously, Lernout & Hauspie had acquired speech technology companies BBS, Centigram Communications Corporation, FDC, Dragon Systems (in 2000) and Kurzweil AI (in 1998).

In 2002, ScanSoft acquired Phillips Speech Processing in a deal worth $US35.4M. Phillips had previously acquired Voice Control Systems which had in turn acquired Pure Speech, Scott Instruments and VPC.

In 2003, ScanSoft acquired SpeechWorks, which had previously acquired both Eloquent and T-Nexit. In January of 2004, ScanSoft acquired LocusDialog, Telelogue in May, and both Advanced Recognition Technologies ($21.5M) and Phonetic Systems in November.

On the 9th of May, 2005, ScanSoft announced their purchase of another major speech recognition company, Nuance.

ScanSoft is publicly traded (Nasdaq: SSFT).

Products

• PaperPort
• Omnipage
• Dragon Naturally Speaking
• Systran Translator
• PDF Creator

External Links

• Official company news