Thursday, October 9, 2008

Nuance and Nokia sign multi-year agreement

By Mass High Tech Staff

Speech recognition software developer Nuance Communications Inc. has signed a multi-year agreement with Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) to provide mobile speech and predictive text capabilities for Nokia’s mobile devices.

The deal entails both a collaboration on the mobile user interface and on protocols in which partners can host applications and multi-modal features.

Burlington-based Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN) participated in a wave of acquisitions over the last year and a half, with the latest buyout announced last week of SNAPin Software Inc., a Washington state-based developer of mobile device and server self-service technology.
 
Nuance also executed seven acquisitions in 2007, and has remained active in the M&A market this year. Last week, it reported its acquisition of Austria-based Philips Speech Recognition Systems for $96.1 million. In April Nuance announced that it would pay $363 million in cash and stock for eScription Inc., a Needham-based provider of computer-aided medical transcription technology,  In August, Nuance was rejected in its bid to acquire Calgary-based Zi Corp. for $40.4 million, a move that led Nuance to file a patent infringement claim against Zi.

Nuance was founded in 1992 as Visioneer Inc. and provides speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers, including the Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software application.