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Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

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Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#351

Post by nl »

FireBeyond wrote: post #150
xwolfi wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When I left Australia, which is now 14 years ago, so grain of salt: you paid 1% income tax for Medicare, unless you were above a certain income level, in which it became 1.5%. If you opted out of the system, you could purchase private insurance, and would not be subject to this tax. There was a floor, where below or near "minimum income" levels, you were also not required to pay this tax. > For instance, you can use…

(Australian here)

Note that the 1% (or 1.5%) Medicare levy doesn't fully fund the health system here.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#352

Post by Balgair »

what_ever wrote: post #295
everdrive wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not very impressed by this, as it can be totally accomplished by a pad of paper and a pen. I'm believe the most valid use of AI/ML is to perform tasks that people either cannot currently do, or cannot easily do. For example, ai-based up-scaling of old video game pre-renders. It's not really feasible for a person to do this well, unless you simply rebuild everything with a team of artists. And you could argu…

Let's see the situations when you are setting those reminders - 1. In bed, all ready to fall asleep, you get up to get your notebook from your desk to add the reminder to your notebook. 2. Cooking with hands all messy, you wash your hands, dry them, go to your desk to add the reminder to your notebook. 3. Driving at 40mph, so you pull over in a parking lot, take out your notebook from your bag and add the reminder. Y…

I gotta ask, can one not just use their memory and remember to write those things down in a few minutes/the morning? I know that kinda defeats the purpose of a notebook. But, like, remembering to write down to get more garlic should not be difficult in any way. Also, if one is so perturbed at forgetting things then some other questions and areas need to be explored. If one is having difficulty remembering things this much, I fear that there are much deeper issues and possibly some quite serious health problems at play.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#353

Post by _carbyau_ »

kelnos wrote: post #337
FourthProtocol wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some examples would be useful. Yes, many that don't pay tax benefit from the government, and yes, you can view that as a working class paying for the unemployed. Imagine, if you will, a 50-year-old woman on the dole (she's paid a monthly sum by the government). In Germany, for instance, this is only paid if she can prove that she applied, and continues to apply for work/seek employment. It's a bit of a mad circle - s…

> And yes, the 50-year-old gets "free" healthcare. Which I contribute to, from my hard work. And I think this system among the best on the planet. I wish more people had that attitude. Instead, in the US, we have people actively making their own lives worse because they don't want to give others things they don't believe they "deserve". If taking more out of my paycheck would get all the homeless people off the stree…

Your last paragraph is the bit that resonates with me.

Paying taxes to treat people humanely and with dignity is a good option because when people are desperate, riots and violence are not far away.

And if your thoughts are to push people to that extreme so you can be violent against them, then it is you who are the lesser person.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#354

Post by fnord77 »

FourthProtocol wrote: post #205
fakedang wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Europeans in the lower taxpaying tiers who love to shit on Americans (especially when the American healthcare system has been getting so much coverage the past decade).

Some examples would be useful. Yes, many that don't pay tax benefit from the government, and yes, you can view that as a working class paying for the unemployed. Imagine, if you will, a 50-year-old woman on the dole (she's paid a monthly sum by the government). In Germany, for instance, this is only paid if she can prove that she applied, and continues to apply for work/seek employment. It's a bit of a mad circle - s…

we americans seem to prefer paying for bombs more than paying to have our own citizens treated decently

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#355

Post by ncmncm »

Can I just say here that these all-cash transactions really suck?

Here you have been carefully exercising your stock options every month so you can pay only long-term capital gains taxes, and avoid AMT, and then BAM! sorry, you just sold it all at once. "BZZZT. Sucker."

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#356

Post by serf »

Whenever I think of Dragon I always remember the early versions (90s?) I used to have to use that required 1 or 2 hours of speech training.

It felt weird reading 'Moby Dick' to a computer for an hour , but at the time there was no product that could even get near Dragon in any performance metric.

Since natural language interpretation is such a widely used concept now I had taken it for granted that Dragon even existed anymore.

I don't know much about the company, and I don't know much about the product anymore, but that kind of persistence and consistency in this field is admirable.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#357

Post by sib »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #207
bombcar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquiring is a simple way to show the Board/Shareholders that you're "doing something" - but I suspect it's rarely very successful in the long run. Unless you acquire a business that ACTUALLY provides some synergies you're just on the path of transitioning from a successful company to a poor imitation of Berkshire Hathaway. It does have the advantage that you can "spin off" your acquisitions once they fail to do anyt…

Can't you just acquire a successful business and then do nothing? Just let the business you acquired keep being successful? It's not that different from investing in the stock market, except that you can have more control over the business you acquired if you need to down the line. You also then own their IP, which might be the most important part.

Here's the challenge:

Let's say there is a business that is successful and generating $10B in revenue and $1B in profit and valued at $15B market cap.

Now you want to buy it.

Historically, you will have to pay something like a 40% premium to its market value in order to acquire it. So you will pay $21B ($15B * 1.4) to own this company.

If you "just do nothing," then the company will presumably still generate $10B in revenue and $1B in profit (and really still be "worth" $15B).

So, you paid $21B for something worth $15B, making the shareholders of the selling company very happy and the shareholders of your company sad.

As a CEO, this is a good way to lose your job.

Effectively, you are forced to present (and attempt to execute) a plan for how the combined business either generates more revenue or has lower costs than the two companies did separately in order to get your board's approval on behalf of your shareholders.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#358

Post by int_19h »

idiotsecant wrote: post #147
DrBazza wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android Auto at least works, and that in turn has voice recognition that works. It's completely "meta" that I have to use voice recognition on my phone to call a number that triggers bluetooth that activates the hands-free and speaker in the car.

I would argue that in-car infotainment systems should be nothing but a dumb terminal into your phone. We already have devices with voice recognition, navigation, multimedia, etc. Why don't we have a way to just use that?

Android Auto is pretty much that.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#359

Post by jonas21 »

jesseryoung wrote: post #288
16bytes wrote: post #63

For those confused, this acquisition is due in large part by Nuance's dominance in healthcare related products. From Nuance's last earnings release[1]: “We are very pleased with the strong start to the fiscal year, as we delivered revenue and EPS above our guidance range expectations,” said Mark Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer at Nuance. “We continued to advance our strategic initiatives, accelerating our cloud tra…

I work in healthcare software and recently did a spike building a voice assistant for the EMR. We compared Google, AWS, Azure and Nuance's voice and intent recognition and Nuance blew all the others out of the water. When it comes to understanding medical terminology Nuance is way ahead of anything other providers have. Dragon has been around for 23 years and has been THE product for VR in the medical field for at le…

Dragon's actually been around since 1982 (39 years). Sad story about the founders, Janet and Jim Baker, though.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/business/goldman-sachs-an...

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#360

Post by mhermher »

paxys wrote: post #230
mrkramer wrote: post #218

>Microsoft tried to buy TikTok's U.S. operations last year in a deal reportedly valued between $10 billion to $30 billion. >Reports suggest it's in advanced talks with gaming chat app Discord for a deal worth more than $10 billion. >A report in February suggested Microsoft was eyeing a takeover of Pinterest, worth $53 billion on the public market. Last September, it bought gaming giant ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion.…

The fact that none of these companies are competing with Microsoft also makes it easier. That's not the strategy Google, Facebook etc. normally use.

ZeniMax competes against XBox Studios or whatever their internal video game studio is called.
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