WSJ.com - Nuance to Buy Dictaphone as It Expands Voice-Recognition Business

WSJ.com - Nuance to Buy Dictaphone as It Expands Voice-Recognition Business: "Dictaphone traces its roots to a company formed in the late 1800's by Alexander Graham Bell. In 2000, Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV of Belgium bought the company for $511 million. Dictaphone emerged as an independent, private company in 2002 following Lernout's bankruptcy. Its major shareholders are European banks who were creditors to Lernout & Hauspie, according to people familiar with the deal.
Nuance is the latest incarnation of the company formerly known as ScanSoft Inc., which began as a document imaging business before buying many of Lernout's speech-recognition products for $42 million in 2001 during the bankruptcy proceedings. ScanSoft acquired Menlo Park, Calif.-based Nuance last year for $221 million and then adopted the name of its former rival. In 2003, ScanSoft bought another competitor, Speechworks International Inc. of Boston, for $132 million."