Summary
Nuance has announced that it will be opening a "Open Voice Services European Center of Excellence" in the UK.
Analysis
Nuance has had a number of offices in Europe, both due to acquisitions (such as the Aachen, Germany office) as well as opening sales and support offices (such as the one in Sweden, which supports most of the Nordic companies).
For the most part however, Nuance has not made major efforts in Europe beyond medical dictation. Witness the treatment of the SpeechWorks era Woking office, which had staff reductions over the years, was moved to a dodgy location in London (combining with old-Nuance's UK office), and now is in Bracknell, UK.
The establishment of this new "center" appears to be a reaction to criticism that the company does not invest enough in R&D. In 2009, Nuance was spending almost $10 million a month on R&D. Of course, it's also possible that the UK or EU enacted some major tax credits for R&D work. Canada has had a very generous tax credit system, and Nuance has been increasing the size of it's office in Montreal.
It appears that this new R&D effort is targeted at mobile speech recognition and associated technologies and voicemail to text.
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
