Nuance buys SpinVox

£102 million deal sees voicemail-to-text company bought out

31 December 2009 9:57 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

SpinVox has been bought out by speech recognition company Nuance. SpinVox, which converts voicemail messages into texts, was snapped up for £102 million, but has seen investment and loans of over £230 million.

In recent months SpinVox had come under scrutiny for just how it translated voicemails into text messages with former staff members telling the BBC it was done via vast call centre operations, casting doubt on the privacy of the operation.

SpinVox denied the claims stating the majority of calls were translated into text via "D2", its "Voice Message Conversion System".

"Around the world, the voice-to-text market has experienced tremendous growth over the last year, with a variety of innovative services being delivered by carriers and unified communications providers", said John Pollard, vice president, Nuance voice-to-text services.

"With SpinVox's robust infrastructure, language support and operational experience, we will broaden the reach and capabilities of our platform".

The BBC reports that Nuance has said it's "too early to say" what effect the buyout will have on Spinvox's 230 staff.

Via: news.bbc.co.uk

Full tags

Phones, Software, Biz, Nuance, SpinVox, Acquisitions