October 07, 2007
Cisco: voice-recognition next on acquisition menu?
Cisco may be on the acquisition trail again this time hunting for voice recognition technology. The network giant has made 122 acquisitions since 1993.
Barry O'Sullivan, head of Cisco's Voice Technology Group, told Reuters the company wants to add more sophisticated voice-recognition technology to its products aimed at helping office workers communicate more flexibly. He was not sure if the network equipment maker would develop such technology internally or through partnerships or acquisitions. In the past however Cisco hasn't been one to wait too long to jump on a technology it considers hot.
And from the sounds of it, voice recognition is showing up a lot more on Cisco's radar: "We'd like to be able to do things like search for stored conference calls, and intelligent tagging of voice," O'Sullivan told Reuters. "There's a $30 billion market opportunity out there. We're all circling around it with different strengths and we all want a piece of the pie."
Not to mention the fact that Opus Research said the market for server-based voice-recognition technology in call centers was valued at $600 million in 2006 and is expected to double by 2009.
In its recent 10-K filing Cisco says it is in the process of identifying additional advanced technologies for focus and investment in the future, and our investments in some presently identified advanced technologies may be curtailed or eliminated depending on market developments. "We have also continued to focus on developing a new wave of technologies, which we refer to as emerging technologies, including such products as digital media, TelePresence, and physical security, among others."
Cisco currently lists the following as its advanced technologies: application networking services, home networking, hosted small-business systems, security, storage area networking, unified communications, video systems and wireless technology.
Certainly Cisco is not alone in pushing for voice recognition technology. Microsoft is embedding voice in Office Communication Server collaboration software and IBM doing the same thing with its Lotus/Sametime collaboration software.
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December 15, 2005
Nuance talks up customer drive
Speech recognition software vendor, Nuance Communications, formerly ScanSoft, has started a new customer campaign via its channel partners to boost uptake of its boxed products.
The vendor is now offering end users $30 cash back on all products from its productivity range, including the Dragon Naturally Speaking, PaperPort, PDF Create, PDF Converter or OmniPage software. The offer will be available between now and the first quarter of next year.
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Speech Recognition Consumer Products Hit it Big in 2005
Sensory, Inc., the world leader in embedded speech technologies, today announced that in 2005 the company achieved record revenues and profits due to its customers' success in releasing speech enabled products, with revenues increasing 70% over the preceding year. Customers such as Radica Games, Hasbro, Inc.'s Tiger Electronics and Innotech Systems have contributed to this outstanding year. "We are ecstatic to have so many customers flourishing in the marketplace," said Todd Mozer, Chairman and CEO of Sensory. "Thanks to their efforts Sensory has had an outstanding year, enabling us to fund many exciting new speech related R&D projects for the years to come."
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November 16, 2005
The Voice Business Market Outlook: Key Technologies and Emerging Market Opportunities
Business Insights is offering a report (for $1530) on the market outlook for voice recognition and related technologies:
The growing number of customer success stories and benchmarks has helped convince more businesses that speech is a viable business solution that provides measurable ROI benefits; by 2008, the global voice business market will be worth $3.1bn, with increasing growth rates through 2007, at which point growth rates will begin to stabilize and fall off as the market matures. While the platform market as a whole will continue to grow, it will have the lowest CAGR for 2004-2008 of any value chain segment. Speech recognition and text-to-speech engines will account for the lion’s share of revenues within the segment, although voice authentication will increase in prominence, through 2005 and onwards. The applications segment is expected to become the biggest portion of the voice business pie by 2008, representing 32% of total revenues. Voice business services will be one of the fastest growing value chain segments through 2008, with a CAGR of 35%.
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October 20, 2005
ScanSoft renamed Nuance Communications in brand play
The Peabody, Mass.-based company will continue to use the ScanSoft name for its imaging products. The company started as an imaging technology business that was part of Xerox Corp. ScanSoft was spun out in 1999 and now also sells speech recognition software and systems.
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September 01, 2005
Sensory unveils RSC-464 Speech Recognition Microcontroller
Continuing to mine the speech recognition niche in many embedded consumer and industrial applications for all it is worth, Sensory, Inc. released the newest member of its RSC-4x family, the RSC-464, supported by a suite of development tools.
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OC3 Entertainment's FaceFX to Use Fonix VoiceIn Technology
OC3 Entertainment, a provider of facial animation technology in games, announced the use of Fonix VoiceIn speech recognition technology in the FaceFX product.
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Nuance takeover by ScanSoft approved
Shareholders of Nuance Communications Inc. and ScanSoft Inc. Wednesday approved a merger of the two voice-recognition technology companies.
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August 23, 2005
FKI Logistex EASYpick Voice Incorporates Voxware's Speech Recognition Engine
FKI Logistex, a global leader in integrated material handling solutions, announces that it has incorporated the Voxware Integrated Speech Recognition Engine (VISE) into its EASYpick Voice order fulfillment system.
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July 29, 2005
Philips SpeechMagic wins "Most Innovative Speech Recognition Solution" Award
Royal Philips Electronics announced today that it has won the industry-leading "Most innovative speech recognition solution" award from Speech Technology Magazine. Philips received the award jointly with Dolbey and Borgess Medical Center for increasing medical transcription productivity by more than 30% at the medical center in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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July 19, 2005
Wizzard Software and IBM Extend IBM ViaVoice(R) Agreement for Two Additional Years
Wizzard Software to sell and support IBM ViaVoice speech recognition and text-to-speech toolkits and IBM ViaVoice runtime distribution licenses. This extension provides Wizzard with the continued ability to distribute IBM ViaVoice developer products to a broad-based development community.
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July 18, 2005
iVoice Reports Total Cash Reserves of $11 Million
iVoice, Inc., a leader in speech-recognition technology, announced today that it had recently completed an additional round of funding under its equity line of credit. Since the beginning of 2005, iVoice has raised an additional $4.4 million dollars, bringing its total cash reserves to approximately $11 million.
Posted by Michelle at 06:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nuance and Speech Technology Associates Team to Develop Fordham University's Advanced Voice Automation System for Students, Parents and Faculty
Nuance, the voice automation expert, today announced that one of the nation's first university deployments of advanced voice automation technology--integrating telephony, speech recognition and Web-based information--is powered by Nuance's customer-proven, standards-based platform technology. Nuance partner Speech Technology Associates, Inc., a provider of advanced speech recognition technology, developed the sophisticated speech recognition and CTI-enabled auto-attendant solution, Automated Operator(TM), for the Fordham University Enrollment Group.
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