Nuance Communications Acquires Philips Speech Recognition

Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) announced it has sold its speech recognition activities, Philips Speech Recognition Systems (PSRS; Vienna, Austria), to U.S.-based Nuance Communications, Inc. (Burlington, MA, USA).

Philips transferred ownership of PSRS to Nuance for approximately EUR 65 million to be paid in cash. Philips expects to book a net gain of approximately EUR 40 million, to be accounted for in the financial results of Philips' Healthcare sector in the company's third-quarter 2008 results. In 2007, PSRS recorded sales of approximately EUR 25 million.

PSRS is active in speech recognition technology for the document creation market, and its focus is on the professional medical and legal sectors. Philips Healthcare provides products centered primarily on the diagnostic and therapeutic needs of patients and their caregivers. Applications powered by SpeechMagic, the PSRS platform, tend to focus more on improving document creation and information management, as part of a hospital's administrative process, and are therefore not considered a strategic fit for Philips' Healthcare business.

The transaction will result in a combination of the strengths of two leading players in the industry. Commenting on the sale, Marcel Wassink, CEO of PSRS said, "By teaming up with a leader in the speech business with a strong track record like Nuance, we can work together to drive new speech-driven services and help Nuance reinforce their presence in the European market.” All of PSRS' approximately 170 employees--of whom 130 are located in Austria--will transfer to Nuance as part of the transaction.

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Philips Speech Recognition Systems
Nuance Communications