14 DAY TRIAL // Nuance Communications Inc. acquired MacSpeech, the leading provider of speech-recognition solutions for Mac OS X and Macintosh computers, the company said in a report today. Nuance will thus be able extend the Dragon NaturallySpeaking family of products to what it calls “a growing community of Mac users” via a native Mac app. Nuance Communications is a provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers.
“We have heard from our customers – and from the Mac community at large – for years that they want Dragon for the Mac environment,” Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager for Dragon, Nuance Communications, said.
“In 2008, MacSpeech licensed our underlying Dragon dictation technology to deliver MacSpeech Dictate, and the demand has only continued to grow, fueled recently by our recent launch of Dragon Dictation for the iPhone. MacSpeech’s knowledge of the Mac platform and its deep understanding of Mac users, coupled with our decades-long experience with speech recognition and the popular Dragon brand, will allow us to provide the world’s best dictation technology in a solution that is 100-percent Mac.”
“MacSpeech responded to the growing demand for a native Macintosh, high-quality speech recognition solution with MacSpeech Dictate integrated with the Dragon speech recognition engine,” Andrew Taylor, president of MacSpeech, added. “We are excited to become part of the Nuance team and accelerate our ability to deliver great speech solutions to the Mac community.”
Nuance explained that, thanks to the acquisition of MacSpeech, and by adding further research and development support, the company would be positioned to accelerate the growth opportunity for MacSpeech products, as well as for Dragon brand recognition, marketing support, and distribution channels. The acquisition also enabled growth opportunities for Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the company said.
Nuance Communications also has an iPhone version of its Dragon Dictation software. Dragon Dictation is a voice-recognition application powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows users to speak and instantly see their text or email messages.