MacSpeech

History

The first commercial voice dictation product for Mac OS X was IBM's ViaVoice, but ScanSoft, the company that had exclusive global distribution rights to ViaVoice, merged with Nuance and stopped developing ViaVoice for Macintosh. (The first dictation software for Mac OS 9 was Articulate System's PowerSecretary.) Seeing a continued need in the market for a Mac-based speech-to-text solution, MacSpeech was founded in 1996 by Andrew Taylor, a former employee of Articulate Systems and an expert in software-based speech recognition technologies.

iListen

MacSpeech's first and former flagship product, iListen, was developed in partnership with Philips Speech Processing using its "FreeSpeech 2000" speech engine. Wildly popular since its release in 2000, by 2006, iListen was the only third-party software product that allowed voice-to-text input on newer MacIntosh models. Its competitors at the time were Apple's own speech recognition software (built into Mac OS X); Dragon Naturally Speaking for PC by Nuance, running under a Windows virtualization software solution such as Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware Fusion; and the discontinued speech recognition program ViaVoice by Nuance/IBM.

MacSpeech Dictate

In January 2008, iListen was discontinued by MacSpeech and replaced by a new flagship product, "MacSpeech Dictate" (released February 15, 2008). In order to build a modern speech recognition product, MacSpeech abandoned the Philips speech engine in favor of the same speech-recognition engine Nuance used in its Dragon NaturallySpeaking product for PC. At the 2008 MacWorld Expo, MacSpeech's newly released MacSpeech Dictate was a winner of the MacWorld 2008 Best of Show award. In 2009, MacSpeech released several editions of its speech recognition products for the MacIntosh, including MacSpeech Dictate Medical, MacSpeech Dictate Legal and MacSpeech Dictate International.

MacSpeech Scribe

is speech recognition software for Mac OS X designed specifically for transcription of recorded voice dictation. It runs on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The software transcribes dictation recorded by an individual speaker. Typically the speaker will record their dictation using a digital recording device such as a handheld digital recorder, mobile smartphone (e.g. iPhone), or desktop or laptop computer with a suitable microphone. MacSpeech Scribe supports specific audio file formats for recorded dictation: .aif, .aiff, .wav, .mp4, .m4a, and .m4v.

Employees, Investors, and Friends

In addition to Mr. Taylor, those involved from the beginning of MacSpeech until its acquisition by Nuance include Chuck Rogers, Michael Schwing, Jeff Ganyard, Donald MacCormick and early hands-on investors Micah Solomon, Mike Dell Orfano, Strategica Capital Corporation, and Sector Capital Corporation.

MacSpeech Acquisition

On February 12, 2010, MacSpeech, Inc. was acquired by Nuance Communications, Inc., and MacSpeech's products were incorporated into Nuance's Dragon NaturalSpeaking product line.

Trademarks & Images

All images and trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and their inclusion here is by permission or otherwise allowed by applicable law. No party hereto makes any claim whatsoever to any right of ownership, claim of license, or otherwise, in any image, graphic, trademark, etc., included herein. MacSpeech and its associated brands are the property of Nuance Communications, Inc., Burlington, Massachusetts. All rights reserved.