Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#121

Post by nicbou » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #17

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.

Wunderlist was killed off before Microsoft ToDo achieved feature parity. The web version wouldn't reliably let me log in. After a few months I switched to Todoist and never looked back.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#122

Post by alberth » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

This is a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26774367

Note: everyone is getting this acquisition wrong. It's not about Dragon and their Speech-to-Tex. This is all about owning an enterprise Communication Platform (e.g. Contact Center, etc).

I'll repost my previous comment from the other HN thread below:

----

Everyone is wanting to take on Twilio. Last September, Microsoft first announced their Communication Cloud.

A huge focus at Twilio now is moving upstream to the Call Center, where Nuance is a significant player. So Microsoft picking up Nuance makes sense.

It’s clear Microsoft sees communication services as a strategic core part of their business.

(Even at the consumer / gamer level with the rumored Discord acquisition talks)

https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/22/microsoft-challenges-twili...

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#123

Post by CuriousPerson23 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

itsbits wrote: post #23

GitHub at 7.5 billion around 2019 looks like a steal.. weird other software giants didn't try for it..

A lot of the giant companies are really concerned about anti-trust. Microsoft is under pressure too, but there would be an uproar if Google or Apple bought given their pressure around the app store. Having access to the code that writes the apps would be tough to pull off...

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#124

Post by everdrive » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

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”.

This never seems to be a popular opinion on hn, but this is the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine: A complex ai built by a billion dollar company, an enormous amount of man hours, only so that switching a light switch because slower, and less deterministic. I'm certainly not suggesting that there are no valid uses for ML/AI, but digital assistants seem to be an enormous waste.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#125

Post by DrBazza » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

hobonumber1 wrote: post #112

DrBazza wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly haven't had the pleasure of trying to use voice control in a Mercedes-Benz. It makes Siri and Cortana seem telepathic by comparison.

Is that the voice control in the MBUX, or in older Mercedes?

In every MB I've been in, in the last decade, the voice recognition could be described as "entertaining".

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#126

Post by iamatworknow » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

defaultname wrote: post #93

geodel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I can understand how stupid siri is. I find it so irritating that I always keep it disabled. But the point that anything Apple doing bad is for the lack of spending is hilarious. In fact I'd say Apple is just keeping spending money instead of shutting it down. When IBM Watson AI sank like turd in market it cut funding and let most of team go. I think Apple doing same might be more sensible.

I think Siri is intended to be more goal oriented. I use it extensively, with very little complaint, daily- -set alarm -next song -set timer -set reminder (e.g. "Siri set reminder 6pm close garage door") -send message to These comprise 99% of what I would want it to do, and it does it marvelously.

Same here. I replaced the few Alexa devices in my house with Homepods over the last year and have notice no difference in how well they work because I don't use them for anything particularly complicated, and I don't _want_ to use them for any more than that. The only thing Siri seems to mess up for my usage is not interpreting things I put on my shopping list correctly, but usually in a way that's still recognizable (like "milk this'll").

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#127

Post by kkielhofner » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #13

This is really, really unfortunate. One of the last on-device speech companies is being bought out and moved into Microsoft's cloud division. Expect nobody to be willing to sell you speech recognition without a cloud subscription now.

Not quite "on device" but Microsoft Azure provides Speech Cognitive Services as containers that you can run in your local environment:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/sp...

I believe Google Cloud Platform has something similar available (not sure about AWS).

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#128

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know their roadmap or plans for Nuance yet you attribute motive.

Microsoft's focus here is pretty well known: They've retired the Windows Speech SDK almost entirely in favor of Azure services, which is where the Microsoft Speech team has moved to, and the announcement explicitly stated Microsoft is bringing this under their "Intelligent Cloud" segment.

They claimed two things. That this would be exclusively cloud and that nobody will sell you speech recognition without a subscription. I doubt this is all.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#129

Post by hnra » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #108

cletus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it more likely that the quality of the voice assistant isn’t that important to most buyers?

(gonna be downvoted to death) Usually Apple die-hard buyers tend to minimize the importance of software/features that are not sported by an i-device or that doesn't work well there. When the 1st iPhone was released, the lack of native apps was a selling point "we use the web standards". When apps were introduced, they were again a selling point (and still are to the present day). The day Siri will work equal to/bette…

What are you getting at? Assuming bad faith, or that Apple buyers are unable to evaluate purchase decisions objectively?

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#130

Post by yalogin » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

I am confused how speech recognition tech is worth 20 billion. It’s not even on the most popular platforms like iPhone, android or the desktops even. Can someone shed some light on this?