Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 418 posts

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#11

Post by someperson »

Several years ago I used a Nuance product named Dragon NaturallySpeaking that had speech-to-text capability and adds verbal accessibility features on Windows platforms (eg, say "Open Word", speak your document aloud, then "Close Word")

I had no idea they had enough sales to justify a $20 billion valuation. Though to be fair, Microsoft tends to acquire companies at high price tags (eg, Skype, LinkedIn, Minecraft) compared to eg, Apple's acquisition strategy of smaller technology focused companies (other than Beats headphones) like P.A. Semi and PrimeSense.

EDIT: Other comments say Nuance's patent portfolio may greatly contribute to its valuation.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#12

Post by bitwize »

struct wrote: post #4

What does Microsoft get out of this? They already have TTS and deep learning transcription, what technical capabilities does Nuance have that they don't have already (or can't develop for substantially less than $20B?)

Probably a crapton of patents for voice recognition.

Also, if you cannot operate a keyboard and must communicate by speech to operate a computer, it's pretty much Dragon NaturallySpeaking or GTFO. Integrating NaturallySpeaking tech into Windows would be a huge boon and further cement Windows as the os to have if you have disabilities.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#15

Post by ocdtrekkie »

someperson wrote: post #11

Several years ago I used a Nuance product named Dragon NaturallySpeaking that had speech-to-text capability and adds verbal accessibility features on Windows platforms (eg, say "Open Word", speak your document aloud, then "Close Word") I had no idea they had enough sales to justify a $20 billion valuation. Though to be fair, Microsoft tends to acquire companies at high price tags (eg, Skype, LinkedIn, Minecraft) comp…

Bear in mind, Nuance is often the voice technology behind other companies' speech-based products too. Nuance technology originally powered Siri, for example.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#17

Post by m12k »

makhmedov wrote: post #5

I think GitHub got better since the acquisition.

And LinkedIn is still terrible, but no more so than they were before the acquisition. Then again Skype just got worse and worse and Wunderlist just got absorbed by the borg cube. So a mixed record, but at least seems to have been getting better in more recent times.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#18

Post by newsclues »

someperson wrote: post #11

Several years ago I used a Nuance product named Dragon NaturallySpeaking that had speech-to-text capability and adds verbal accessibility features on Windows platforms (eg, say "Open Word", speak your document aloud, then "Close Word") I had no idea they had enough sales to justify a $20 billion valuation. Though to be fair, Microsoft tends to acquire companies at high price tags (eg, Skype, LinkedIn, Minecraft) comp…

I think the way carmakers are going the auto industry could justify most of the valuation.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#19

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

bombcar wrote: post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

Siri is brain-damaged. I am constantly disappointed with how stupid she is compared to Alexa and the gap is widening. I try to keep things as simple as possible with her because she always disappoints me. I wish Apple would open up a tiny bit of those 200 billion in cash reserves on improving Siri.
Post reply on HN